Revised Unique Selling Proposition: Scale Development, Validation, and Application

ABSTRACT

This article reports an empirical study that revisits the unique selling proposition (USP) concept by delineating the content domains based on an operational definition. A revised USP (RUSP) scale was developed and purified, resulting in five dimensions that were consistent with our theoretical conceptualization. An application study further demonstrated that a high or low level of RUSP characteristics in an ad is associated with ad effectiveness measures. Theoretical contributions, managerial applications, and future research directions are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• benefit claim statement
• persuasion strategy
• scale development
• unique selling proposition

Acknowledgments

Both authors contributed equally to this paper. We are thankful to Professor Bradley Barnes (University of Sheffield), who provided editing work in our first draft.

Funding

The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71172196 and 71572120) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (No. skqy201507) supported this research project.