I Am Amazed…
February 25, 2008
…at the sheer lack of USP’s in the creative industry. I found a site this morning, one that has been featured on a handful of design galleries, and in all truth, has very nice work in their portfolio. Their pitch?
“We are the best. No, really, we are.”
No offense, but thanks for nothing. Doesn’t branding 101 consist of NOT making qualitative statements that are hard or impossible to measure? But this is most of all I see in the creative world. Now, granted, the creative industry does largely consist of intangible, subjective deliverables, with critiques consisting of slightly more business minded art gallery-ish reviews.
“I like it.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Could use more color.”
However, you would think that since our work is not merely hanging in a gallery on a wall, but instead trying to impact the bottom line of our clients, we would be able to conceive USP’s that bring more efficacy to the marketplace, both in attempting to sell our, and our clients, products and / or services.
Thoughts?
Nick Dominguez
February 25th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I would agree with you for the most part. I think it’s hard having USP’s within a service industry but it can be done. I would
guess the main reason you don’t see alot of USP’s in this industry in particular is because the overall opinion is they can dillute the name
of the agency.
Brandon
February 25th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Meaning the name of the agency (and the type of work they are known for) becomes the USP? That makes sense.
However, in reality, only a select few agencies will every make it to the level where people know them for their work (at least on a broad national and international scale) which means that all of the others will continue to say the same things, but without ever having the quality of name recognition clients and breadth of exposure needed to make their reputation their USP.
Seems like there is a better way, but then again, I’m just thinking out loud.
(I’m sure it could be argued that every agency’s reputation is their USP, just on smaller geographic and size of client terms.)
Nick Dominguez
February 25th, 2008 at 10:08 am
So the question is what could you see as a realistic USP for an creative services agency? Green advertising? Exceptional customer service? Speed and turnaround? I’ve always thought that an agency with a strong involvement in social responsibility would create something intriguing and appealing to companies who want quality work and want to feel good about who they give that work to.
Barney
February 26th, 2008 at 4:43 am
The fact that so many people can’t grasp this has helped me no end within multi-design faction organisations. Firm belief in qualitative judgment is, for many designers, what sets them apart as craftsmen. That’s a very useful fallacy as far as the rest of us are concerned