Advertising Platform and Proposition
The basis of advertising platform must logically be a combination of the characteristics of the product, i.e., what it is and what it does, with the particular factors of the product that make it stand out from all others of its kind, namely the unique selling proposition.
It is clear no use merely to concrete on the genaral features of the product (though these must be included) without making as much as possible of a selling-point of the special merits the product possesses -or which you will build into it for merchandising purposes- that distinguish it from all likely competitors. SOmetimes, as already discussed in earlier chapters, the nature of the product renders it especially difficult to isolate any of its physical or operational properties and constitute them into a unique selling proposition. Here, advertising skill must come to the aid of the marketing plan to create the impression of a unique selling proposition.
Cigarette and alcohol provide perhaps the most outstanding examples of products where the advertiser function plays the key role in creating a unique selling proposition. One has only has to review whisky advertising and reflect on the fairly regular appeals to (a) connoisseurship, (b) traditional skills, (c) aristocratic associations, to realize that the advertising itself by implication pays tribute to the difficulty of giving such a product clearly distinguishable unique selling proposition. Menchandising efforts to achieve individually by means of the appearence of the product or the pack, for instance in the shape of the bottle, have helped to some extend, but in vew of the high element of “service-dispensing- that is, buying liquor in less than a bottle in bars or restaurant than in other of container-toiletries for instance. Nevertheless a great deal can be accomplished even in such difficult product fields.