THE BASIS OF USP

A Unique Selling Point abbreviated to USP is a specific characteristic or convention that makes a product, service or message stand out from every other institutions production. This makes the company have a distinct benefit for their audience and increases the rating and amount of its consumers. A USP gives the companies prospects a clear reason to do business with you, and allow other competitors to understand the quality of your product or service. Creating a unique selling point for a product is about making the product appeal to a specific demographic and psychographic audience - each advertisement must suggest to the customer "buy me! buy me!" ideally the suggestion will be unique and something other competitors do not have. It must be appealing and strong enough to engage new customers.  A USP basically singles you out from the opposition and will often be a proposal that appeal to the consumers of the product, the USP is often reinforced by a slogan alongside it. 

                             Examples of USP and why they benefit the company:

In both of these advertisements, the clear USP would be their slogan shown on both forms of advert "Get The London Look." this slogan acts as their USP as its adverting what Rimmel gives you by using their bold red lipstick - which is the London Look. This is different from their competitors such as Mac, Max factor or L'Oreal as they are appealing to their audience specifically through their products. Whereas the above mentioned do not do this to stand out, they use generic slogans to work well with their overall company despite following the conventional idea of makeup brands. Their USP would be bright colours and smooth textures and they support this by using their slogan to reinforce their USP. 

                     

Within this short advert produced by Rimmel London- they are using celebrity endorsement and as the face of Rimmel London they religiously use celebrities to wear their makeup and this can act as another USP for their makeup brand due to other makeup brands lacking in this. In this advert, like aforementioned with the poster adverts they use bold lipstick within this advert too, relaying the before message I mentioned. These techniques of repetition definetly make the makeup brand more memorable and help it stand out from the others. Also this advert helps to sell the sloagan of this particular advertisement "Get the London Look." taking this slogan and making it literal by referring to the London look as a bright red lip stick.

The M&M advertisement has one of most-known slogans "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand." this acts as their Unique Selling Proposition as this distinctively separates them from every other chocolate company as it creates a memorable image of the company and acts as something to relay back to, to mention the product. As well as their slogan, the USP could also be described at their chocolate being covered in a hard candy shell, differentiating them from their competitors. Competitors of the company such as Smarties or Hershey's increase the competition between M&M's and the competitors as they increase their prices and this will make M&M lose value, thus causing them to lose customers. However their USP keeps them above the game and helps them stand out. 

From early 1986 - M&M have been using their slogan "The milk chocolate melts in your mouth not in your hand." they use this as their USP, clearly because of the strength their slogan has and the way it has the control to continue to promote their product. Over 40 years the slogan has continued to embrace the audience of M&M and make them want to purchase the product. 

Overall, USP can help a company increase in ratings, memorability and value. However it depends on the company that has the USP whether or not other companies will begin to develop similar USP's.

STYLES OF ADVERTS

Different adverts have a variation of styles, these styles help the audience understand what the guideline of the advert is and how each advert reciprocates to the audiences needs. The following are different styles: Surrealism, Parodic, Dramatic and Humorous.



                     


Surrealism is the movement of art, the modernity of this is represented within certain adverts that targets specific audiences in the relation to their aspects of art. More likely towards the younger generation as they have a more connected involvement to arts and craft and the whole idea of individualism. Surreal adverts may appear to be vivid with imagery and colours depending on the product, service or message they are relaying towards the audience. Surreal adverts will have a dream-like effect that may make audiences want to view them again and again and tell their friends about the adverts. The Muller yogurt advert with the celebrity inclusion of Nicole Scherzinger, represents a heavenly view of the after life creating a perspective of a dreamlike surreal world. The creators do this to appeal to the enjoyment of soothing visual imagery that the consumers may have, this is an advantage as doing this will make consumers think of the advert as very memorable because of the distinctness that the advert has and when consumers think of the product they will link it with the advert. The demographics of this advert could appeal to A-E as they are presenting a food item, all demographics would be appealed however because of the celebrity endorsement it may appeal closer to the psychographics of mainstreamers and explorers as these are usually young people and will know the celebrity and be more appealed to it. A disadvantage of using this concept of angels in heaven eating yogurt and being air-headed by falling down may be insulting to those of religious beliefs as they are mocking higher power than us. Another disadvantage would be because of the focus on the surreal image of the advert, audiences may ignore the actual product and just focus on the look of the advert instead of the service behind it.

                      


Humor is a double-edged sword, many people have different variations of what they would find comical. This is represented within adverts that appeal to different target audiences, they can characterise the humor differently depending on the advert as there are different humor guidelines the producers will follow to achieve the most satisfaction for their consumers. In this case, the humor is subjective and people may find the Evian advert quite cute and cheerful as there is a basis of amusement and enjoyment seeing the animated babies take on surreal actions such as break-dancing and skating. The idea behind the adverts visual production is to make the product as original as possible compared to other water bottle adverts, and this is an advantage as the consumers will acknowledge this advert due to the humorous actions of the animated babies. The demographics of this advert would appeal more to those who are family orientated and are within the path of life where they are becoming families - so ideally it would be from A-C as these demographics would have entered that stage in their life where they can relate to adverts with babies. However although the demographics is of A-C, commonly the psychographics would be mainstreamers as they heavily seek for security and believe in family products. Due to the entire motif of the advert being babies they would be able to relate. A disadvantage of using only babies and not many other age groups is that some people may feel uncomfortable with the idea of babies doing these types of activities and take a negative outlook on the advert and the way it is presenting its product. 

                       

Parodic adverts are usually created to mock other advertisements and their products- by borrowing different elements of the existing advert and manipulating audiences to buy their product in a humorous manner and this directly shows them creating a rivalry between them and badmouthing the opposing companies. This is an original advert which promotes the usage of Duracell batteries that advertises how long the battery can be powered for and specifically how it is more powerful than other brands of batteries. The ideal promotion of this advert is to exaggerate the life of Duracell batteries to make audiences want to use these batteries fundamentally for their products that use this current. The slogan "No ordinary battery looks like it, No ordinary battery works like it." helps them in marketing their product and making it seem intensified contrasted with other battery brands. By commericialising their brand and product with the usage of pink toys they are creating a concept of nostalgia for their demographic audience that can be anyone from A-E as all demographics will use their product among their every day life and routines. The psychographics for this advert could be mainstreamers as they are very domestic and seek the value of family products - as their children rely on batteries for various toys this advert would appeal directly to them. The disadvantage of only using toys is that not everyone has children and sees the family side of this advert thus they are more likely to turn the advert off and change channel which makes the rating of the advert decrease as less audiences will be able to relate to the advert and want to buy the product or service they are presenting.

                           
                             

However with this advert above it manipulates the advert of Duracell and mocks the company, by doing this they easily can manipulate audiences into believing they are the better batteries to be used. Throughout the production of this advert, it illuminates the same visual imagery using the same bunny symbol only this one has a bigger drum maybe metaphorically speaking about the competition between Energizer and Duracell you can convey that the drum refers to this competition. They also mock Duracell at the beginning of the commercial when they say 'you may have seen other batteries outlasting in toys' this is the brand of Energizer throwing comments at Duracell and the way they portray their product. By mocking other brands of batteries, Energizer are giving themselves a bad name and property for their brand and product - decreasing the popularity that their product may have and this can lead to less audiences wanting to buy their product. 


                      

Dramatic adverts are to engage the viewer and provoke a sense of guilt or sadness and to leave an impact on the viewers because of the general element behind the advert, this could be a message or a service. Most dramatic adverts are concerning serious and sensitive topics such as bullying,drugs or even drunk driving. The adverts mainly contain topics that will provoke us to feel something towards the actions and make us remember the advert and the message,service or product behind the advert. Many dramatic adverts have a main target audience in which they try to suck in and gain more promotion and attention towards their production. The above advert is relaying a very personal, sensitive topic that will engage the consumers and arouse their interest in the message or service. It provides a helpline and a person to talk to when you are experiencing the low level of treatment that bullying involves, it gains the attention of the people that entertain bullying and are the bullies. Through the production it will stimulate their conscious sense of how they feel about bullying and guilt will contaminate them if the advert relates to how they treat someone. Within the advert, it produces the message that it only takes one person to stand up to bullying and to let that one person be you. The demographics of this advert would ideally be towards E as it directs this service to students, by doing this they are projecting an issue within schools to the students and making them realise the severity of bullying. The psychographics of this advert would therefore be more towards Aspirers as this would describe youth of today being orientated to their image and appearance and seeking status among their peers. A disadvantage of this advert however may be that the service is only touching the surface of bullying as in this example it would be a child being ginger, and that to some audiences may be seen as minor because of simply a hair colour and not an extreme reason for attacking and bullying.