I have sat in numerous meetings where clients and agency people alike have spent hours talking about what the rational unique selling point (USP) is of a product.  Very rarely have any of the products I have sold had a truly unique feature or benefit.  And in technology, any unique feature is quickly copied and therefore unsustainable as a long term strategy.

Whats much more unique is the emotional features of selling a technology product.  How it feels to the user.  The retail environment in which it is presented.  The feeling it creates in others who see you with your gadget.  And ultimately the meaningful human interaction and creativity it brings.

So why then do we insist on spending hours debating the rational USP of a product?  Comparing every tiny feature of a product with like for like competitor comparisons?  And talking about one specific rational feature as if it is going to solve every problem you have ever had in your life?

I propose we are asking the wrong answers and therefore coming up with the wrong solutions.  Take my previous article about Nokia’s N97.  Imagine the engineers and the marketing team’s conversation.

“The n97 has so many USPs.  Its sure to be an i-phone killer.”

“For a start it has a 5 megapixel camera.  The i-Phone only has 2.”

“Not to mention the FM transmitter…”

“And the fold out keyboard.”

The list goes on.  Nokia got so hung up on rational USP’s; they forgot about how people use the phone and the feelings it creates in the heart not the head.  A great product is more then the sum of its features. The tragedy of most products is that despite the brilliance of their specification, these features are not how women engage with technology.

One woman told me last week;

I love my i-Phone.  It somehow manages to capture the human expression of technology; whether its flicking the screen like i would with paper or browsing through my photos.  It just feels more human that other tech gadgets”

Pretty Little Head talk about how most marketing focuses on the Achievement Impulse- a male strategy which delivers competitive claims framed through a product advantage (largely based on Baron-Cohen’s work).  Most advertising claims talk about how technology helps men succeed.   In advertising we use ‘male’ language- military language of targets, strategies, campaigns, deployment and so on.

With the missed financial opportunity being at 0.6billion according to Jupiter, as a consequence of failing to connect with women, technology brands need to build marketing programmes around a female mindset and agenda.

Forgetting about USP’s is a good place to start.