The USP has reached its sell-by date. But how do you replace it?
Traditionally, when brands are developed, there’s a Unique Selling Proposition at the heart of everything. “What is the one thing we can promise consumers?”
Rosser Reeves of the Ted Bates agency introduced the Unique Selling Proposition in the 1940s. His claim-based advertising made Ted Bates hugely successful and its clients immensely wealthy. Anacin is a good example.
There’s the USP: “Relieves pain fast. Anacin is like a doctor’s prescription – that is, Anacin contains not just one, but a combination of medically proven, active ingredients.” Skilfully crafted words, make no mistake. Ted Bates repeated the message:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSQi5qJ0wjw
Don’t knock it. One of Anacin’s commercials is reputed to have made more for the client in seven years than Gone with the Wind made for MGM in twenty-five.
In the 1980s, Robin Wight took the USP to a new level of hard-core machodom when he coined the maxim ‘Interrogate the product until it confesses.’ His London agency WCRS prided itself on “hard-centred advertising… based on a substantial and compelling product truth… a solid and unequivocal reason to buy.”
During what must have been a prolonged interrogation, WCRS found out something about VHS tape that not even Scotch knew: every time you record something, the tape is ‘electronically renewed.’ This compelling product truth became the basis of the agency’s most effective campaign ever.
But isn’t it time to move on?
Today, seventy years on, the Unique Selling Proposition – aka Consumer Promise or Value Proposition – proves to be remarkably resilient. It is still the default approach. Probably because it encourages a discipline of single-mindedness. Nothing wrong with that.
But things need to move on. Not just for the sake of it. For a few reasons.
- First, it is increasingly difficult to find a product difference that matters. These days, interrogating a product to find out why it is ‘better than and/or different to’ its competition is like getting blood from a stone. It’s just not a good way to spend the week. Yes, of course, the interrogation must be done; it’s part of getting to know the business. But if it’s a USP you’re looking for, don’t get your hopes up.
- Second, and more important, haven’t we become more sophisticated consumers of communication? The USP is one-way communication. A nail being driven into your head. A point being hammered home. These days, that hurts, especially our sensibilities. We like to feel something, especially a sense of participation.
- Third, and to my mind most important, the USP is not, actually, how human beings work. This is not how we form relationships. We don’t interrogate ourselves to come up with a Consumer Promise before we go on a date. We don’t look for the USP in a partner. Or, for that matter, in a career, a neighbourhood, a religion, a TV series or a blog.
“So, tell me a little about your USP.”
We don’t go around looking for promises. Rather, we allow people and things into our lives as we get to know and trust them. Consistency and reliability are key here.
“A brand is not a promise you make to your customer. At best, all any company can do is try. But promise? You got to be kidding.” Walter Landor
Is it possible to find a replacement for the USP?
Specifically, is it possible to keep what is so valuable about the USP?
- A single idea
- Constancy
- Campaignability
- Being unique to one product and one product alone
But is it also possible to free things up?
- So that, as brand developers, instead of talking at people, hammering away at them, driving nails into their heads… we engage with them. And we engage with what matters most: their emotions; their hopes and desires; their values; their deeply-held beliefs.
- So that, as brand developers, our first priority is not what the manufacturer wants to say about the product – may be desperate to say about it – especially after all the money he has sunk into its development – possibly on some ego trip – possibly in front of his competition. So that our first priority becomes what at the moment is our second priority: to understand someone’s life and how the product may play a role in it.
- So that the heart of a brand no longer has to be intrinsic, rational or even ‘beneficial.’ So that a brand no longer has to promise anything… Instead, it can make a meaningful contribution to a person’s life and, therefore, to society.
Is it possible that a small change in perspective can make all the difference? Can we develop long-term, deep-seated, meaningful, revenue-generating relationships, not by luck, but consciously?
Consider the characters Dickens created.
The ‘cold-hearted’ Scrooge.
The ‘miserly’ Fagin.
And, in case you’re worried all Dickens’ characters are scrawny and nasty… consider the rotund, convivial and much-loved Mr Pickwick.
Then consider the characters Shakespeare created, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet. They are incompetent, they are dishonest… and they are a welcome relief from the existential angst – to be or not to be – which Hamlet is going through. A welcome break from what is rotten in the state of Denmark. A sorbet between main courses. A few laughs between soliloquies.
And, finally, consider Shakespeare’s gravediggers. These clowns, these fools crop up throughout his plays when we most need them. They give us a breather before the suicides, the murders and the tragedies continue. Gifted with a clever turn of phrase and a mischievous wink, they take the air out of the great pretenders. Death has a way of doing that.
Series – it’s the same thing.
Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
The opening lines of Dragnet resonate sixty years on. The template it created lent itself immediately to the new medium. Action, adventure and a hero who never changed. The same structure dominates the vast majority of what we still watch today. Western series like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Rawhide… porved that not only could the one-off hits of cinema be milked endlessly but, more importantly, that endless repetition was actually attractive to audiences wo loved building long-term relationships with characters who never changed and never seemed to grow old. Series at their best not only form a powerful bond with their audience; in skilled hands they are capable of great emotional depth. ****
The importance of home.
The imposition of one main set has, as restrictions often do, allowed writers to discover something very important: by concentrating on a character’s ‘home’ they’ve found one of the most potent weapons in the serives armoury. The story is telling us that this place matters, this place is home. *****
Series tap into something deep – our craving for safety, security and love – a family that will stand by us and save us when the rest of the world attacks us or doesn’t understand. The underlying format of all successful series is very simple – the enemy is without. Every week the precinct is invaded by a physical manifestation of the ‘other.’ And every week the regulars make things better and order is restored. It’s no accident that almost all the successful series have at their centre family structures.
Series are also moral. The values of home triumph and safety is restored once again.
Introducing Repetitive Pleasures.
In 1927 E.M. Forster used the descriptor, repetitive pleasures, to capture the value of these simple, one-dimensional characters – the characters who provide a welcome relief from the complex main characters of a drama. Here’s how he describes their value:
“In their purest form, they are constructed round a single idea or quality… they are easily recognised by the reader’s emotional eye… they never need reintroducing, never run away… they are easily remembered by the reader afterwards. They remain in his mind as unalterable… not changed by circumstance, which gives them a comforting quality … nearly every one can be summed up in a single sentence, and yet there is this wonderful feeling of human depth.” *
He could be talking about brands, couldn’t he?
- Constructed round a single idea
- Easily recognised
- Never need reintroducing
- Easily remembered
- Not changed by circumstance
- A comforting quality
- Nearly every one can be summed up in a single sentence
Just as Dickens and Shakespeare understood the value of simple, one-dimensional characters to offset the bigger, more complex drama taking place, shouldn’t brands could do exactly the same thing in our lives?
After all, we have our hands full when it comes to the complicated and difficult stuff – ambition and heartbreak, careers and relationships, fears and doubts, kids and parents, politicians and economists, corruption and climate change, people being amazing and human beings behaving badly…
Examining E.M. Forster’s definition above, if we were to think of brands as Repetitive Pleasures, what valuable aspects of the USP would be retained?
- They would still have the simplicity and the discipline of the single idea
- They would still be easily recognised and constant
- They would still be campaignable – repetitive
How would Repetitive Pleasures free things up?
- We would no longer talking at people, hammering away at them, driving nails into their heads… we would be engaging with them.
- Our priority would no longer be what the manufacturer wants to say. Our priority would be to be ‘easily recognised by the reader’s emotional eye.’
- Our priority would no longer be to be intrinsic, rational or beneficial. It would be to create something with ‘a wonderful feeling of human depth.’
“It’s about increasing the enjoyment of the product that someone is buying.” Walter Landor
Many iconic brands are already Repetitive Pleasures.
Look around. Many of your favourite brands have already let the USP go and have, instead, ‘a wonderful feeling of human depth.’
Surprisingly, WCRS – Robin Wight’s agency which promised clients ‘a substantial and compelling product truth’, produced this campaign of Repetitive Pleasures:
Which do you think generated more revenue for Carling? The USP of ‘a fuller flavour’ or the repetitive pleasure of the campaign?
The Simpsons are a Repetitive Pleasure which is not rational, beneficial or positive in the traditional sense. But they are the most successful television brand of all time. **
A USP is the manufacturer talking at the consumer; it’s a rational, beneficial promise.
A Repetitive Pleasure is the consumer experiencing something inside him or herself, thanks to your brand. Something that matters: a belief that is important, for instance, or a truth about life.
There’s a world of difference between a USP and a Repetitive Pleasure.
Your product performs a valuable function. But your brand can make a meaningful contribution to a person’s life. And, therefore, to society.
The deeper that resonance, the more society will value you.
Johnnie Walker.
Johnnie Walker cannot promise, Keep Walking. That’s laughable. Johnnie Walker has no instrinsic qualities that allow it to claim that it will give me staying power, it doesn’t matter how long it has been in an oak barrel.
But Keep Walking reminds me that life requires grit, perseverance and determination. As I sit down at the end of the day, either successfully or unsuccessfully, it nourishes my spirit. It evokes those qualities.
That’s what I’d call a wonderful feeling of human depth.
Keep Walking matters. It makes a meaningful contribution to my life and, I’m sure, to society.
A USP can’t do this, but a Repetitive Pleasure can.
But has Keep Walking worked? Well, yes it has. In the 1990s, sales of Johnnie Walker whisky were declining. Today, after the global rollout of Keep Walking, its value has risen 48% and its volume 94%. Johnnie Walker is worth more than the next four whisky brands combined. ***
Here are some of the things which come into my life with welcome regularity. I look forward to them, not because they are momentous extravaganzas, but because they are the exact opposite. They are small, simple moments. What makes them valuable, is their constancy, their reliability. As the rest of life swirls around, they are lighthouses.
Every morning.
Every Saturday.
Every now and then.
Every November.
Repetitive Pleasures.
Repetitive pleasures are an important part of our lives. Things like the full moon and the return of spring are profoundly, reassuringly repetitive. But so are small things like Sunday takeaways…
As E.M. Forster says, “All of us, even the most sophisticated, yearn for permanence.”
It’s why we have book clubs, TV soaps, mid-week matches, Christmas and New Year, the Olympic flame every four years and Sunday evening takeaways.
It’s why you have your own Repetitive Pleasures.
It’s why brands should be Repetitive Pleasures.
May the force be with you.
* Forster, E. M. 1971. Aspects of the Novel. Penguin Books: 75
** The Brand Licensing Europe 2010 Conference
*** http://www.creativebrief.com/agency/work/686/12
**** * Yorke, J. 2013. Into the Woods. Penguin Random House UK: 175 – 182