your unique selling proposition

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Positioning your brand At this stage of the process, you have pulled together all the critical information you need to develop an effective brand.

You are now well informed about your customers, your competitors, the opportunities and threats in the market-place, and trends that may affect your brand. You also have a clear vision for your business and what it stands for.

The next steps are to blend this information into a brand strategy and to develop a “positioning” that both differenti-ates and distinguishes your brand from your competitors and illuminates its most vital characteristics to make your brand highly attractive to your ideal customers.

Positioning is a key concept behind brand marketing. The purpose is to position your brand, product or service so as to differentiate it from your competitors and to have your customers identify it as better, different, or more special than that of your competition.

Sometimes there is very little difference between products, yet large companies still spend millions of dollars explain-ing to their customers why Nike sneakers are different from Adidas, Absolut Vodka is different from Smirnoff, and FedEx is different from DHL.

The Brand FunnelThink of the branding process as a funnel – add information and insights at the top, keep and refine those that are important, and discard those that aren’t. As the remain-ing essential elements move lower in the fun-nel, what you finally distill is the essence of your brand.

Bringing Your Brand Into Focus

“Don’t try to be better… Try to be different!” – Al Ries and Jack Trout

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Your Unique Selling Proposition The concept of brand positioning has been around for years. In the 1960s, Rosser Reeves, one of advertising’s most influential figures, presented it as the Unique Selling Proposition, or simply USP. In his book, Reality in Adver-tising, Reeves proclaims that every successful advertising campaign contains four key elements:

1. It must make a specific proposition to the customer: “Buy this product and you will get this specific benefit.”

2. The proposition must be unique or “perceived as unique” by your customers – something your com-petitors don’t have or offer and which they would not be able to imitate easily.

3. It should be so compelling and relevant to your ideal customers that it entices them to try your product or service because it addresses their needs, fears, frustra-tions, or desires.

4. It must be simple and easy to articulate and com-municate so your customers quickly understand that your product or service offers them a unique benefit.

Although this concept was created decades ago, it is still relevant in developing your brand today. In fact, the USP Reeves created for M&M’s Candy, “It melts in your mouth, not in you hand,” is still used today.

Some other examples of USPs that were introduced years ago that are still in use today are:

• FedEx: “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”

• Wonder Bread: “Helps to build strong bodies in twelve different ways”

Rosser Reeves(1910 - 1984) is thought of as one of the great influences in advertising. He landed a job at Ted Bates and Company in 1940 working as a copy-writer. He became a vice president and, in 1955, Chairman of the Board. His 1961 book, The Reality of Advertising, presented the concept that made him an advertising icon, the Unique Sell-ing Proposition (USP).

Branding Ins ights for Smal l Business

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Consumers compartmentalize Consumers prefer to pigeonhole a company and its products and services. In their minds, they like to put your products and services into a neat little box and clearly labeled according to what you do, how well you do it, the cost, and the underlying value offered.

In many ways branding facilitates this process. When your brand is clearly defined and communicated, consum-ers become comfortable with your brand and thus with buying it. When your brand is fuzzy – perhaps because you’ve provided too many choices, options, or messages that they have begin to counteract each other – consum-ers become unsure as to what your brand stands for, and they may then look to your competitors for clarity. In this regard, you’ve got to stand for something in the mind of your customers, or you stand for nothing.

Car manufacturers are notorious for trying to be too many things to too many people. It used to be that a particular car manufacturer had a clearly defined niche staked out with its core customer. However, in the pursuit of selling more cars to more people, manufacturers began trying to broaden their appeal to customers beyond their core audi-ence. Take, for instance, a Chevrolet. Is it a big or small, expensive or cheap car?

Foreign car brands do a much better job of targeting and protecting their core customer base. However, they too have begun to undermine their brands by foraging out-side their core audience. Mercedes, which always stood for roomy, expensive, prestigious, superbly engineered cars, has damaged its brand by offering cheaper, smaller models while allowing its high quality to slip.

Consumers want to put your products and services into neat little drawers so they will be able to find you when they need you, and their expectation will always be met in the same way.


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This seems to be happening with increasing frequency as businesses seek greater short-term revenue, while either misunderstanding or perhaps disregarding the long-term damage they are doing to their brands. It may seem contra-dictory, but the key to building a strong brand is to narrow your focus and become exceptional at the one thing your key customers will truly appreciate you for.

Your brand’s key promise?Your brand positioning is defined by your key promise. In Chapter 5 (The Discovery Process), we touched on one of the key aspects of brand positioning: your key benefit. Two questions were posed: “What does your business offer that consumers want or need and why?” and “What are the key benefits you provide your custom-ers, and why are they important to them?”

To determine your key promise, start by making a list in your Brand Journal of every possible way a customer might benefit from using your product or ser-vice. Narrow the list down to those key benefits that provide the greatest value for your ideal customers.

The goal is to identify one great reason customers should buy your brand, rather than a slew of reasons. Keep the focus on the one superior benefit that provides the great-est value and the “most unique” benefit for your ideal customers.

Keep refining your key promise more tightly and narrowly until it’s as sharp as a laser that will cut through the clutter

Laundry Detergent PositioningSometimes in large, competitive markets, it may be difficult to define a truly unique point of differentiation. Take laundry detergents. Most popular brands are pretty much the same; they’re all effective in cleaning your clothes. Yet one claims to eliminate “ring around the collar,” another is “safe in all temperatures,” and another is “stronger than dirt.” They’ve created these particular benefits to carve a niche market for themselves.

Many consumers would be hard pressed during a blind taste test to pick their favor-ite brand of beer, soda, or detergent (not that you would taste-test laundry deter-gent, but that you still couldn’t tell which clothes were washed in which detergent).


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of competing messages and deliver your brand message to your ideal customers with pinpoint accuracy when it comes time to market your brand.

Here are some questions that can jump-start your thinking about your brand positioning:

• What does your brand bring to the table? What value does it add? What unique element/facet/point-of-view does your brand provide that is above and beyond the product or service itself?

• What promise does your company stand behind and consistently deliver to your customers?

• What is your competitive advantage? What one thing can you deliver that your competition cannot?

• Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What are some of the things in your business (or better yet, what are the things in your competitors’ business) that irritate, upset, cause extra work, inconvenience, or just plain drive them up a wall? And what can your brand do resolve these issues?

• What are you doing now that you can improve with a different approach or process?

• What ability, capability, or service can you incorporate into your business that will have a dramatic impact, even if you don’t offer it today?

The key question to help you craft a compelling brand strategy is: Why would someone want to do business with my company in spite of all the other options available, including continuing to do what he or she is doing now, or doing nothing at all? When you can answer this question, you are well on your way towards an effective brand strategy!


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What does your company provide for its customers?Most businesses provide benefits associated with cost, quality, technology and competition. Which of the follow-ing key benefits most accurately reflects your business?

• It solves a problem

• It gives pleasure

• It provides more time

• It offers cost savings

• It generates greater profits

• It offers greater efficiency

• It adds stature or some other emotional component

Authenticity is the keyIt is important not to lose sight of your company’s core values and beliefs. During the branding process, you may be tempted to stray off the path and consider positions that may hold great appeal but are inconsistent with your company’s core values, beliefs, and principles.

Don’t be seduced into this. It will not be effective in the long run. Nothing will sink you faster than promoting a false or disingenuous claim. For example, when you think of Volvo, you think of a safe car. Why? Because for Volvo safety is the key promise it makes to its customers and one that it continues to deliver on through innovative safety features in its cars.

Top brand strategies to consider1

Below are a number of strategies that you may want to consider when you develop the brand positioning for your business, product, or service.

� AdaptedfromWhatMakesWinningBrandsDifferent,AndreasBuchholz,WolframWorde-mann,�000,JohnWiley&Sons


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Adopt an ideology or spiritMany brands do this effectively, as many consumers want to distinguish themselves in a way that reflects their beliefs, attitudes, and values. If your customers share and identify with your belief, they may identify with your company and its products.

Those who smoke Marlboro cigarettes relate to its image of rugged individualism.

Nike’s “Just Do It!” got us off the couch to take responsibility for our lives without whining or making excuses.

Avis turned a negative into a positive with its “We’re number 2, but we try harder” positioning. Americans loves underdogs. They figure, given a choice between competing products of perceived equal value, why not do a good deed and help the guy who needs it more?

ConvenienceConvenience can be a strong brand position if it has real benefit for the customer. Enterprise Rent-a-Car’s “We’ll pick you up!” is a great example. Obviously, if you need to rent a car, you don’t have a car to drive to the rental office to get one. This no-brainer brand strategy has worked very well for Enterprise, which has geared its business to service suburban market where this promise holds greater value due to lack of mass transit.

Culture A positioning that serves a particular community because of its affinity for race, culture, or lifestyle can be an effective

Think benefits,

not featuresRemember that

what is important to you may not be important

to your customers.

Many small business owners deservedly get excited when their business passes the 5-year, 10-year, or 50-year milestone. To be sure, these are great accomplishments. However, do these milestones provide any real benefit to your customers? No!

View your brand’s positioning from your customer’s perspec-tive. Make sure the benefit is important to them and addresses a need in their universe, not just yours. For example, If you produce drill bits, the benefit to your customers is that you make ¼” holes, not ¼” drill bits.


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Cornish Game HensSometimes success comes from creating a market when none existed. For example, what’s the appeal of Cornish game hens? Why would people want to eat a miniature chicken when they can have a full-size one? Be-cause when they are promoted as “Cornish game hens,” they take on certain pa-nache which appeals to those pretentious snobs who won’t eat just plain old chicken.

positioning. Christopher Street Financial, a New York-based investment and advisory firm, has found a success-ful customer niche in catering to the financial needs of the gay and lesbian community.

Eliminating a guiltHallmark has done a great job of getting people to plunk down $5 or more for a greeting card. Why? Because its ubiquitous advertising campaign of “When you care enough to give the very best,” implies that if you don’t give a Hallmark card, you’re really a cheap bastard who doesn’t give a damn!

Exclusivity beyond the genericAmong commodity items, a brand can position itself as a better–than-generic alternative. Think Chiquita Bananas, Perdue Chicken or Morton Salt.

The promise of being a better personMany of our lives are impacted by our value systems, which tell us the right and wrong things to do. Positive values like responsibility, duty, honor, courtesy, honesty, generosity, loyalty, and compassion have an important impact on our aspirations.

The Body Shop has built a tremendous business by sell-ing only environmentally friendly products and using profits to support preservation of the rainforest.

The promise of self-expressionWho (or what) does your customer identify with, or have an affinity towards? The Marine Corps or coin collecting? The ballet or break dancing?

Harley-Davidson has become a classic example of a turnaround brand positioning. Once associated with


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Hells Angels and biker gangs, Harleys are now ridden by middle-aged yuppies who long to relive the freedom of their youth.

The promise of being a lovedLook at almost any perfume advertisement. The under-lying theme is that this perfume brand will bring your subliminal desires of lust and love to fruition.

Put a new spin on something oldTake something that already exists and put a new spin on it. In 1984, a new circus debuted despite the conven-tional wisdom that circuses were on the downswing. But Cirque de Soleil didn’t focus on clowns and animal acts. It created a hybrid Broadway/ballet/circus show experience that focused on sophisticated acrobatic performances and beautiful music in an elegant tent.

A Mexican beer, Corona, borrowed the image of the lime slice associated with tequila and used it to create a com-pelling differentiator for its brand. The picture of a lime with a toothpick sitting on top of a Corona bottle quickly helped make it the second best selling imported beer in the U.S. behind Heineken.

SafetySafety is a strong positioning, especially when danger is involved. Volvo has done an excellent job of being perceived as the innovative leader in automotive safety technology, and using this perception has build a power-ful brand among suburban families with young children.

Provide a solutionWhat do you do with all that old stuff in the attic that you can’t bear to throw out? Why, you sell it on eBay!


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SpeedMany companies promote themselves as the fastest – and many times they are (and many times so are your competi-tors). Unless you have a process that is much faster than your competition, one they will have difficulty duplicating, or are first to claim this positioning in the market, don’t make a promise you can’t back up.

FedEx has built a strong brand by promising to get your package anywhere across the county (and now the world) the next business day. Domino’s Pizza has done some-thing similar by promising to deliver fresh pizza to your door in less than 30 minutes or it’s free.

StatusMany companies understand that individuals who have come into wealth, or would like to be perceived as wealthy, wear brands as a badge of status. They arrive in their Mercedes, wearing Rolex watches and sporting Gucci handbags and insist on paying for lunch with their Ameri-can Express Gold credit cards. If your product or service appeals to the very rich or pseudo-rich, this is a prime brand positioning. If you provide a superior product for this customer, price is usually no object. In fact, the more expensive the product, the more value is attached to it.

Technology and innovationTechnology can provide a powerful differentiator and posi-tioning, but only if the innovation provides a clear benefit to the customer. Many times, the average consumer cannot determine which products offer the best technological solution. This is why Intel and Cisco have made themselves successful as technology leaders. While they don’t sell directly to consumers, the consumer perceives these brands as superior. Purchasing technology that includes these brands reassures buyers that they are getting the best solu-


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tion. However, be careful about building your brand around a technological solution if your technology can be easily copied or imitated.

TraditionTradition can be a strong USP if it offers a strong benefit to your customers that your competitors cannot match.

Anyone who has a preteen daughter is probably very aware of American Girl, one of the best brand success stories in America. Each Ameri-can Girl doll represents a particular period in American history, and each has a series of books that tells about the girl’s life during the period they lived in – on the Western frontier, during the Revolutionary War, or on the home front during World War II. In addition, each doll has an elaborate line of clothing, furniture, and accessory items that cost as much, or more, than a comparable adult item.

Brand strategies to avoidA positioning that promotes “best service”, “best tasting”, “lowest cost”, “most experi-enced,” etc. is usually not a good idea. These superlatives are too generic and so overused they that have little meaning to the consumer.

I caution you to avoid creating a brand positioning around these unless yours is truly compelling. In almost every mature industry, these strategies have already been adopted by other competing brands. There is really no right or wrong solution in this process. Make the best educated decisions you can make, do research to ensure that your decisions and assumptions are on target, and then plan for success.

PlatformateSometimes you can capture the technology positioning even when a technological advantage doesn’t exist. For many years, Shell Oil ran a highly successful ad campaign developed by its ad agency, Ogilvy & Mather, which promoted its “ex-tra mileage ingredient,” platfor-mate. The ads set up an endur-ance test on the Bonneville Salt Flats between cars using Shell gasoline with platformate and cars using gas without platfor-mate. The Shell cars always won. However, there is one ironic twist – all major gasoline brands con-tain platformate. Shell was able to capture this brand positioning through its advertising, denying its competitors this overlooked positioning and thus becoming perceived by the consumer as the better-mileage gasoline.


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PriceDon’t position your brand around price unless you’re a Wal-Mart and can deliver on the promise of “everyday low prices.” Most customers drawn by price are not very loyal to brands and will quickly switch to another brand offering a lower price.

ServiceMany companies say they have the best service, but unless your service is unique or so much better than the competi-tion’s, don’t make it your position.

Nordstrom built its business through a service position-ing: “Service above and beyond all that is expected.” Today, Nordstrom has become the gold standard for exemplary service, even outside the retail industry.

QualityMany companies say they have the best quality. At best this claim is overused to the point that it really has no impact with consumers. In today’s world, there is a strong expec-tation that good quality is a given and expected of most products and service. Unless your quality is truly exception, significantly better than your competition, and no competi-tor has already adopted a quality positioning as its own, I would recommend that you forego a brand positioning based on quality.

GuaranteeLike service, almost everyone offers guarantees. Unless you have one your competitors can’t match, forget it.

ChoiceMost consumers are overwhelmed by the number of choices they already have. Research has shown that six


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items per category is the most consumers can comfortably manage. Don’t overwhelm your customers with a bewil-dering array of choices… unless you’re an ice cream parlor.

Does your brand’s strategy have legs?One consideration in developing your brand, besides its authenticity and competitive advantages, is how well and how long it will play in the marketplace. If you have a compelling new idea or story, you can use publicity and press coverage to help build awareness of your brand, which is so important to getting your brand off the ground early.

For example, Starbucks and The Body Shop became huge brands with very little advertising because they had interesting stories to tell about their business. The Body Shop created an image of a caring company that helps to protect the environment, the rainforest, and indigenous peoples and animals, while selling only natural products.

Starbucks took coffee, which was viewed as just a commodity by most consumers, and gave it a new twist and some pizzazz. At the time, coffee consumption was declining, mostly because manufacturers had eroded the quality, flavor, and value of coffee by switching to cheaper beans and smaller and smaller cans. Starbucks gambled that when people had an opportunity to taste quality coffee, personalized to their tastes, they would become loyal customers.

Starbucks has reinvigorated the whole coffee industry, and coffee consumption has actually risen as a result. There have been countless articles and stories about the Star-bucks phenomenon. When working on your brand posi-

How To BrainstormAs you mold your brand positioning, don’t just accept the first idea or possible solution, no mat-ter how obvious. When I do this process with clients, we try to come up with as many solutions as possible. (I shoot for a goal of 20 answers.) It’s easy to come up with the first five or 10, but it’s a lot harder to come up with the next 10. You’re forcing your brain to think creatively. Some of these ideas may seem crazy and off-the-wall. But don’t be surprised if one of these turns out to be the best one. Once you have 20 ideas, then you can critique, critique, critique.


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tioning, if you have two or more possibilities to work with, determine which of them would be the most news worthy to the press and your customers. An interesting story will translate into greater news coverage and more awareness of your brand.

Finalizing your brand’s positioningNow comes the most important step in the branding process. By now, you have identified a number of competi-tive advantages and important benefits or promises in your Brand Journal. Continue to narrow the list to those that provide the greatest value for your best customers. This provides you the substance to begin writing your brand positioning statement. Your statement should articulate what your business stands for and the benefit it delivers to your customers.

Your brand positioning is important. Don’t underestimate it or give it a short shrift. It will become the engine that drives all your future marketing and subsequent business growth. Your brand positioning statement should not be long-winded. Keep it crisp and concise so that it commu-nicates what your brand stands for in no more than three or four sentences – one sentence if possible. Keep chipping away at it. Eliminate any dead weight. Narrow your focus until you have a crystal clear, concise, and powerful brand positioning statement that has tremendous power and appeal to your ideal customer.

StarbucksFocus on one thing and do it better than anyone else. That is what How-ard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks Coffee, did. When he opened his first Starbucks, he didn’t create just another coffee shop that made sandwiches or donuts. He provided premium coffees, brewed cup-by-cup and customized to the whim of the discriminating coffee drinker. He took coffee to another level and charged as much for a cup of his java as a typical coffee shop might charge for a complete breakfast. His diligent focus on branding made Starbucks a franchis-ing home run, with a stock capitalization value of over a billion dollars.


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Developing a tag lineYou may find value in distilling your brand statement into a simple tag line that can be used in future advertis-ing and marketing to quickly communicate your brand’s positioning.

Some examples include:

• Just Do It – Nike

• Pork: The Other White Meat – The National Pork Board

• The Ultimate Driving Machine – BMW

Your positioning tag line can be different from your brand identification. For example the heartburn medication Nexium uses “heals the damage” as it positioning tag line and “the purple pill” as its brand identifier.

SummaryMost people justify their purchases rationally, but make them based on emotions. They look for logical reasons to back up the emotional buying decision they’ve made. They’ll buy your brand because it makes them feel smart or good about themselves. Generally, most of the actions people take can be boiled down to two desires: the wish to avoid something that is painful, or the wish to receive something pleasurable. Don’t lose sight of this when you develop your brand positioning.

Once you’ve developed your brand positioning, look for opportunities to deliver your brand’s message through your marketing, often and consistently. Like a hit song, develop a simple message with a great hook and hit “play” again and again.



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Herman MillerA word of caution about research. Consumers are not very good at evaluating things that are new and different. They will always use past experiences as a template to evaluate new things. With Herman Miller’s Aeron Chair, the initial consumer reaction was that the chair was “ugly” because of its totally different design and construction. If the people at Herman Miller had listened only to the consumer, they would never have built the chair. Ironically, the “ugly” chair went on to win a number of prestigious design awards. Soon, percep-tions about the chair began to change and people began to see the chair as beautifully functional, which eventually made it a huge success.

This is one of the most important books you’ll find to help turn your small business into a big business!

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• How to take the mystery out of developing a logo and effective brand image

• How to get your employees, partners and key stakeholders to support your brand initiative, and in a brand driven culture in your business

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your unique selling proposition

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