Is Your USP Missing the Mark Like This One From Ginos Pizza?
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There’s no arguing this, your Unique Sales Proposition (USP) is one of the most important marketing messages you can share. Fortunes have been made on these apparently simple slogans:
- “When it absolutely and positively has to be there overnight.” - Fedex
- “Hot, fresh pizza delivered within 30 minutes - guaranteed - or it’s free!” - Domino’s Pizza
So what do you get when you miss the mark or wort still, you borrow from someone else’s USP, you get a weak and potentially damaging USP like this…
“Delivered Fast or $5 off - 40 Minute Delivery Guarantee.” - Gino’s Pizza
Now is it me, or is that a lame USP? Seriously, let’s take this apart and review the wording. “Delivered Fast” - that breaks the advertising copywriter rule of “specificity.” Generalities are weak, how fast is fast? I don’t know - do you?
Now let’s look at the $5 pay off… Again, weak. And it gets better when you read the small print that came printed on their flyer:
“Min order - $24.99 before taxes…” - So this means that if your food is late (and you’ll note they don’t guarantee your food is hot, or fresh, or tasty) you’ll get at best a 20% discount for your trouble. [Their 'big deal' pizza combo is carefully priced at $22.99 - below the guarantee point.] Clever. Oh yes, the $5 discount applies on your next order. Are you kidding me? Who’d want to repeat that stellar experience?
Oh yes, and if you are going to make an offer based USP then don’t be sneaky to cover your butt - be brave. This Gino’s Pizza offer limits the guarantee to “standard delivery areas” and “certain conditions apply” (not spelled out on the flyer) and … this is my favourite… “Weather and road conditions permitting and lobby delivery for apartments!”
Awesome guys… so my food isn’t guaranteed to arrive hot, if it’s late I get a lousy $5, and only if there’s no traffic and the weather plays nice. Oooh, I don’t think so.
Oh yes, and the small print says I will be charged $1.50 if I want to pay for my pizza delivery with debit… So even if they pony up $5 for being late, it’s only $3.50 in many cases (and only on my next order!)
Well folks… I’m predicting Gino’s new USP offer is going to cause them more trouble than they bargained for… I’m not buying it.
PS. The flyer I got this morning says their website URL is “ginospizza.ca” (no triple-w) - Try entering it like that and see what happens. Doh! Nice going guys… You’ll need to add the triple-w to make it work. Hmmm
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Isn’t it wonderful…bad marketing….makes a market for wizards like you!