Emotional Selling Point

USP and ESP

An ESP is what makes your product service or idea appealing to the senses, feelings and
Marketing techniques make use of two important selling points (or selling propositions), the emotions. How will you feel if you buy this? What makes you respond, deep inside?
Unique Selling Point and the Emotional Selling Point.
Examples:
Unique Selling Point

The USP is what differentiates your product, service or idea from the competition. Why
should someone choose your product rather than another one? What’s special about it? In
his book Reality in Advertising, Rosser Reeves (Chairman of the Board at Ted Bates &
Company, who first developed the idea of the USP) gives the precise definition as it was
understood at his company:

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the customer: "buy this product, and you will get this
specific benefit."
2. The proposition itself must be unique - something that competitors do not, or will not, offer.
3. The proposition must be strong enough to pull new customers to the product.

However, Reeves warns against forming a USP based on what he calls "The Deceptive
Differential" - a uniqueness that is too small or too technical for customers to observe the
differences in actual practice.

Examples:
“Sell the sizzle, not the steak”. – Advice given to junior advertising executives.

Mc Donald’s – Get them when they’re young!

Abolition of Slavery Propaganda, 1840

Kellog’s Rice Krispies – You don’t get “Snap! Crackle! And Pop!” with müsli
Basics of Classical Rhetoric Pathos – An Appeal to Emotions (Joy, pleasure, fear…)

Aristotle defines Rhetoric as: ”the art of seeing the persuasive in any situation”. Compare with ‘Emotional Selling Point’

Examples:
He identifies three basic forms of Rhetoric; Logos, Pathos and Ethos, which may be mixed
together, or may operate alone:

Logos – An Appeal to Intellect: The logic and reason of your argument.

Examples:

“Tests show that a high fibre diet is good for your health” (therefore you should buy XYZ).

McDonald’s Nutrition Information

http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html

Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan. Motivation for the sake of it, and (in this case) as pure escape.

Graphic from Greenpeace website about Climate change, illustrating the relative proportions of carbon
usage in the home.

BodyShop ad. Buy our products and feel as good as this woman looks
Ethos – Use of Reputation, Endorsement etc.
Can be a famous person (such as Prince Frederik of Denmark promoting the Red Cross),
or using the bad reputation of an opponent or competitor.

Examples:

Princess Diana campaigning against Land Mines

Elvis Presley LP using the ‘reputation’ of 50 million fans.

(Is there some pathos here? You don’t want to be left out, do you?)

Secretary of State, Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN, February 2003

He is holding up a vial of what a ‘biological agent’ (a weapon of mass destruction) may look like.
Colin Powell (unlike Bush and many others in Washington) had a reputation as a ‘dove’ (a peacemaker) in
the lead-up to the second Iraq war, but his presentation nonetheless argued for an urgent invasion. The
invasion force began to assemble one month later.