Breaking Bland

There’s a question asked of all our customers soon after they buy a SplashMap.  It digs for the motivations behind their choice. Our whole product innovation cycle and all of our marketing efforts are shaped by the responses to this question.  Adjectives abound in the answers we get, however, they all tend toward a simple concept. People are looking for something unique. In coming to SplashMaps they are breaking bland!

Unique becomes bland

A person’s name on a novelty fork is a clear indication that someone has remembered your name (surely encouraging) before they came to visit. But don’t you think unique becomes bland when it fails to tap into what makes that person unique?

Unique is bad taste

I went through a phase of sending my friends cards of sympathy on their birthdays: Someone celebrating their 21st would deliberately receive a card more suited for a beloved Grandmother. But all these gestures were clearly more about remembering me than thinking of them. But all these gestures were clearly more about remembering me than thinking of them.

French style flamboyance

When you think “unique gift”, how big can you think?  Try the French style flamboyance when they gifted the Statue of Liberty to the newly independent USA.  Something that engaged the best artists, craftsmen and engineers of a generation to make a permanent and beautiful feature to underline the very purpose that country sets out to achieve.

Giving unique

One of the most exciting things about technology nowadays is that it allows us to move beyond the bland but without having to go extravagant.  Giving unique gifts is within all our grasps and that moment of delight is never easier to tickle.

What’s unique about you?

A fellow business owner recently asked me to consider what makes SplashMaps unique.  Perhaps he expected the answer “our maps are fabric”.  It’s the most obvious feature and smacks you in the face on every ad we put out.  But, in fact that’s not the answer I gave him.

Everywhere in the whole world

In fact what makes SplashMaps unique –  literally NO other map makers do this – is that we map everywhere in the WHOLE WORLD.  Uniquely we map the whole world at a great WALKING and CYCLING scale.  You can then stick your own title on it. And literally NO ONE else does that!

The fabric we use is the best map material money can buy, but really it’s a feature we use simply to make a “better map” than those offered on devices or on paper.  The fact that it’s fabric merely enhances the benefit, but what people want is uniqueness.

This is the place we’re travelling to

So isn’t that what people really want when they say “I want something unique”?  They’re actually saying “I want something that’s different from what anyone else has bought me.  Something that’s personal from you to say that you were thinking of me.” Perhaps you could go further to say “this is where I met you” or better still “this is the place we’re travelling to”.

Re-evaluate uniqueness

Gift or not, it’s time to re-evaluate uniqueness.  Give it a go.  Anywhere!