Value: What the Soup Nazi Teaches us about Marketing

Just like the realtors tell you location, location, location, great marketers will tell you value, value, value. We get a great lesson on that from the Soup Nazi on the 1990’s hit show Seinfeld.

For those that didn’t live the 90’s, in the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld, Jerry takes George to a new place he found that makes the absolute best soup. There’s a warning that comes with their visit: The owner is a little tempermental.

Here’s a link to a little recap.

He has bad service to say the least, the line takes forever, the price seems fair, but certainly no discount and we can assume by the drab, prison-like interior, that a snappy ad campaign was not on the Soup Nazi’s mind. He did, however, achieve the Holy Grail for marketing channel: word of mouth. So how did he obtain word of mouth advertising despite all that he did wring?

All those bad things are part of the value proposition along with the one good thing, the taste of the soup. The point is that the value of each thing (promotions [0], service [-100], brand experience [-100], product [1,000,000]) , add up to an overall value.

“Value trumps everything.” That’s the advice that Costco founder Jim Sinegal gave Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. If the value equation is overwhelming positive, market success is what comes out. It’s not that easy. Sure, we could all win with the lowest price, the best product over the top service, but we’d also be out of business soon, because it’s hard to make money that way. We have to make som choices.

Maybe your service and product are passable, and the price is amazing. Boom. There’s your value proposition. Maybe the price is high, but the product passable, and the service is world-class. Boom. There’s your value proposition.

While I don’t advocate the negative service of the Soup Nazi, the example shows that we can be passable in some area to be great in other areas. Many take the easy way out and strive to be passable in all area, failing to distinguish themselves in any one area and blending into the market. We need to consciously devise our value proposition. Do you know yours? Are you in control of it? What are you okay with being passable on? What do you have to be great at?