Entelligence Blog

Marketing 101 teaches us the all important USP – what is the key distinguishing factor that will differentiate one product from another?  How does your product stand out from your competitors?  Sometimes differentiation presents an interesting dilemma: Do you offer what you know the market wants, or do you offer what the market knows it wants?

GraphJam’s satiric representation of the content found on women’s magazines highlights the situation for us.  Whilst a woman may, quite likely, be interested in a wider range of topics, the magazines have adopted the approach of running with content that sells the mags.  Women choose to buy their mags to improve sex, lose weight, and catch up on gossip – but there are so many more intellectually stimulating topics that could enrich the readers life substantially more.

Take asset management companies – a few have realised that many investors want short term gains & don’t invest with a long term view.  These companies promote their short term asset performance data & win customers on this basis.  Other, traditional asset management companies (such as Allan Gray) follow a long term approach & consistently provide better investments over a period of 10 years than their competitors.  However, the long term asset managers have historically struggled to grow their investor base as agressively as what their short term counterparts have achieved.  So – which approach was right? Giving the market what it wanted or giving the market what they knew it needed?

Apple has made a breakthrough recently in its move to Intel-based platforms for all its computers.  This allows windows to be operated either as the primary or dual operating system on the computer, along with the Apple OS.  This change in approach has meant that Apple is not too different from PC.  The difference was always liked, but created uncertainty when it came down to make the purchase.  Migrating from PC to Apple nowadays presents a far less unsettling experience.  The USP is there, but historically Apple was viewed as ‘Opposite to Windows, and more complicated’ it is now viewed as ‘Different to Windows, but simpler’.

Buy the Art of Negotiation Book Now

The Art of Negotiation book pushes the concept of entering a negotiation as moderately as possible.  The book goes on to explain how taking an extreme position often antagonises the opposing party.  By negotiating your viewpoint as moderately as possible, you are more likely to achieve the desired outcome.

Selling a product to a customer is a negotiation.  Perhaps a more moderate USP is the way to go rather than positioning your offering as entirely opposite to the rest of the market?

Ultimately, a USP is in place to differentiate your product, but more importantly, to sell your product.  Commercial pragmatism needs to drive marketing approaches and if customers demand a particular type of product and are not ready for something different – don’t try to sell it to them.  It is a business – not a religion.  You can convert customers to your way of thinking as you build trust, which may be more possible by providing an undistinguishable product and then slowly changing it until your vision is met.  Convert existing customers to your view of how a product should work rather than starting out by trying to win new customers with something so revolutionary that it may just scare them off!

by Sean Riley