Comm. uniqueness X Product uniqueness

The yesterday’s post talked about figuring out what precisely turns a place into somewhere unique, something that Paris knows how to do so well. Thinking of Paris brings into mind things that only Paris gets to have, and I don’t refer to the Eiffel Tower only but also to a pack of visions, colors, smells, perfumes, letters, lyrics, and languages that makes Paris unique.

That’s what the marketing and advertising professionals seek all the day, naming this process as uniqueness. English-named like this in the Brazilian market, uniqueness becomes a brand, an institution, and there comes the danger.

Uniqueness is the master aim of every comm. professional. It is about talking about a product, a service, a brand, a company, anything in a way that can only be applied to it. It seems as those words were created to refer only and exclusively to that special something. That way of walking, or speaking, that characteristic way of somebody, all are examples of uniqueness of somebody that many professionals aim to bring out to the brands. As it were possible though…

The uniqueness’s positive side is its contribution to positioning. We always want to know the positioning of a product in the market, how it is presented to the consumer, what its policies are, and then we realize that positioning, uniqueness, brand, brand architecture and branding all have relation to each other, bigger than we could even expect.

The uniqueness’s drawback is its contribution to traumatize. Yes, I mean it, as what was supposed to help positioning a product, when possible, ended up becoming theory to forgo advertising actions just because “this action lacks in uniqueness. Any competitor of mine could do it”.

This is generally said by agencies clients, the marketing professionals of advertised brands. But they forget the fact that what we hardly see nowadays is a product with uniqueness. Many readings show the extreme contrary: there’re gradually more similar products in the market and the firms need advertising tools in order to grab some differentiation.

May they recognize: this huge amount of similarities is provoked far more not by the admen, but rather by the marketers, the same ones dropping comm. actions claiming they don’t have uniqueness.

Shall we be clear: certain campaign or action will have uniqueness in its inner part only if the product has it. If the product comes up from the factory lacking in differential, the marketer cannot expect approving uniqueness-based actions.

What an agency does is balance the lack of product-uniqueness by creating uniqueness in the communication. This may be anything having impact, some very creative idea, something nonsense, probably come from the nothing but that has always the power to leave its message.

May however the marketers have in mind that comm. uniqueness will NEVER come up with something that only that product has. The comm. uniqueness is ALWAYS grabbed from a general thought away from the product but that turns into uniqueness just because that product will have been the first to adopt that kind of communication.

Product uniqueness is something that necessarily just that product has. Comm. uniqueness happens when the product has adopted that kind of language, or that platform, or style, prior to anyone else.

The Telefonica’s Super 15 is a comm. uniqueness. It is not further than a superhero in service of a long distance code. There could be the Embratel’s Super 21? Right on dude. But it has become Telefonica’s uniqueness just because it was the first to resort to a superhero in the category. Any other trying the same would be judged as a copier.

Fiat’s newest campaign saying “compared to the new Siena, others are naked” has got a relevant concept to the auto’s category and a good ad composition as well. Everything is well-done but, is there uniqueness there? There is not, since this concept could be used by any other car having as original parts many of the optional ones. But the Fiat’s marketer knows the campaign provides the product with something it cannot exclusively offer by itself, and then he is comfortable that this concept, first aired by Fiat, won’t belong to anyone else.

Before a comm. action being forgone for uniqueness’s lack, may the marketers realize this doesn’t exist. In advertising, uniqueness never lacks: uniqueness is built. On the product though they may sure ask for the uniqueness lacking. Next time somebody complains about uniqueness lack, suggest the marketer to drop not the campaign but the product instead. What if the marketing VP answered the product VP as follows: “I won’t set up your product because it doesn’t have uniqueness”?