Promoting Your USP

April 13, 2006

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A hot dog stand in a downtown office area has a large sign on it, "Joe's Redhots — Satisfy yourself for $1.00! You deserve it!"

In this case, the message is targeted to all passing potential customers who want to indulge themselves inexpensively with a hot dog. There also may be a subliminal message for sinful or forbidden indulgence, too, since most hot dogs are high in fat and unsaturated fats. This unique selling proposition (USP) is self-targeting since only consumers who like hot dogs and feel that they deserve an inexpensive indulgence will believe this message is meaningful to them. Joe did not try to distinguish his hot dog features from those of other vendors (e.g., all-beef, skin-on, Kosher, etc.) since these features were not unique.

However, the benefits in his message are relatively unique: "inexpensive satisfaction plus indulgence." His informal, qualitative research revealed that his target market of busy office workers were constantly in conflict with themselves about wanting a juicy, delicious hot dog and trying to watch the fats and amount of meat in their diets. Therefore his USP and ad message were exactly on target for many customers!