ABSTRACT
Arguably, at its core, the fundamental goal of marketing is to create, sustain, and monetize a competitive advantage through a superior customer value proposition (CVP). This chapter highlights the evolution of the CVP across the years. It also highlights the emergent “third-wave” viewpoint of the CVP, at the core of which is brand emotion and its power in shaping a sustainable CVP. The traditional view that prevailed until the 1980s and even into the 1990s was that marketers could shape the value proposition by focusing on one or both of two routes. One route is the “branding route,” where the marketer shapes the CVP through a product differentiation strategy by offering a superior value in terms of the benefits, both tangible and intangible. A second route to shaping the value proposition is “pricing route,” where the marketer shapes the CVP by offering superior value in terms of lower prices, either momentarily through discounts, etc., or by adopting a price-leadership strategy.
