A few months back I saw this crazy slogan on the back of a commercial van.  This is what it said…

“My Plumber Smells Good AND Shows Up On Time!”

…And then underneath the slogan it had the typical contact informaton of the plumber (name, phone number, address, etc.).  

It dawned on me that this was a great headline…  And as I thought about it, I realized it was great because it offered a particularly strong USP (unique selling proposition).  And I want to talk for a minute about why it’s such a strong USP…  

But first let me ask you a question… What are probably the two most common complaints about plumbers?  And let me give you a hint, it has to do with their timeliness and the odors they give off.  :)  Y

You see, this is a brilliant headline and slogan because it takes that which the average consumer thinks are the more annoying parts of a plumber  and turns that upside down!  Wow, talk about differentiation…  This is a case study on how to do it! 

Notice too that coming up with this slogan was obviously not happenstance–i.e., it took some research on the part of someone to find out what the average Joe dislikes about plumbers…  This is something we *all* need to be doing — researching our market, and in particular — the customers of the market — to find out what their typical objections are…their points of distrust, etc.  And while addressing those issues in a headline won’t work for every market, we need to think creatively about how we can proactively answer the questions our customers might be asking.