Coaching Tip: If you don’t have a USP (Unique Selling Point), create one

Originally Submitted on 11/13/2001.

Introduction

You want your product to stand out from the compe-tition, right? Then think about this story from the advertising industry:

The Coaching Tip

Claude Hopkins was a copywriter for the J.L. Stack Agency. When he was assigned to work on the Schlitz Beer account, the brewer was fifth in its industry and wanted a rise in market share. Since most beer at the time was brewed using the same process by every company, finding a fresh angle for Schlitz would be challenging. Hopkins decided to do some homework.

First he asked to be sent to the Schlitz brewer’s school. Then he asked for an in-depth tour of the company’s brewing facilities. He watched beer being made and paid attention to every detail. Finally he decided to plan an ad campaign that emphasized things like Schlitz’s use of artesian well water, and their practice of cooling the beer slowly in an air-filtered room and sterilizing their bottles with live steam.

The brewers thought Hopkins was crazy because every beer company made its product exactly the same way. But Hopkins knew that very few of Schlitz’s customers knew about the brewing process; they would see each element of the process as different and special. And no competitor could start touting the same processes or they’d look like copycats. By turning Schlitz’s all-too-common brewing techniques into Unique Selling Points, Hopkins took the beer from number five to number one, where it stayed for
many years.

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