Unique selling proposition

In marketing, the unique selling proposition (USP), also called the unique selling point or the unique value proposition (UVP) in the business model canvas, is the marketing strategy of informing customers about how one's own brand or product is superior to its competitors (in addition to its other values).[1]

This strategy was used in successful advertising campaigns of the early 1940s. The term was coined by Rosser Reeves, a television advertising pioneer of Ted Bates & Company. Theodore Levitt, a professor at Harvard Business School, suggested that, "differentiation is one of the most important strategic and tactical activities in which companies must constantly engage."[2] The term has been extended to cover one's "personal brand".[3]

  1. ^ Hindle, Tim (2008). Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus. London: Profile Books. p. 197. ISBN 9781846681080. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  2. ^ Levitt, Theodore (1986). The marketing imagination (New, expanded ed.). New York: Free Press. ISBN 0029191807.
  3. ^ Clark, Dorie (March 2011). "Reinventing Your Personal Brand". Harvard Business Review.