Never Use the Word ‘Unique’ in Your PR writing

Please nev­er use the word “unique” in PR.

Marketing- and PR jar­gon might not be the worst thing in the world but, as far as I’m con­cerned, it’s up there. Corporate plat­it­udes equal cor­por­ate cringe which equals bad PR.

However, many PR pro­fes­sion­als, who hon­estly should know bet­ter, still cling to the word “unique” — even to the point of fiercely defend­ing its use.

Why is “unique” such a despic­able word to put in your PR copy?

The typ­ic­al use case describes some­thing as unique when it isn’t. You might state that the first gen­er­a­tion iPhone was a fant­ast­ic product, but it was­n’t. A reas­on­able rule of thumb: If you can pro­duce mul­tiple cop­ies of some­thing in a fact­ory, it’s not unique.

And even if they had only pro­duced one iPhone ever, it was­n’t exactly the first or last smart­phone to ever be made.

“But the product had unique features!”

You say that a mass-pro­duced product is unique because it has “unique” fea­tures, you say? We’re already on a slip­pery slope of deflat­ing what such a dif­fuse state­ment even means. 

Does it mean that no one will be able to copy these fea­tures?
Or does it simply mean … “new”?

“Uniqueness” is, by defin­i­tion, its self-real­iz­ing fea­ture. What makes some­thing unique is that it’s uniquely unique.

A fin­ger­print is unique. A strand of DNA (unless you have an identic­al twin) is unique. A code stamp for a crypto­cur­rency is unique by design. Yes, you are a sin­gu­lar human being flow­ing through the cos­mo­lo­gic­al space­time. And yes, you are unique.

A work of art is unique because there will only be one ori­gin­al, no mat­ter how many cop­ies you make. A non-fun­gible token is unique because that’s its whole purpose.

This blog post is unique and served to you via a unique URL. It’s noth­ing spe­cial about this par­tic­u­lar URL, but it is unique. That’s why the URL works.

But your new product or ser­vice? Or a spe­cif­ic fea­ture? Please.

At the same time, if you zoom in or out far enough, sud­denly everything becomes unique.

My wrist­watch is unique because no oth­er watch has the same con­fig­ur­a­tion of molecules. No oth­er watch is sit­ting on my left wrist at this very moment. In that sense, my watch is unique.

Beyond describ­ing what’s genu­inely unique by design or pur­pose, the term does­n’t mean any­thing. It’s reduced to cor­por­ate cringe the very moment you type it into the head­line of your press release.

Or worse: Your PR copy is just crap that’s all dan­cing and all singing.

“You are not spe­cial. You’re not a beau­ti­ful and unique snow­flake. You’re the same decay­ing organ­ic mat­ter as everything else. We’re all part of the same com­post heap. We’re all singing, all dan­cing crap of the world.”

― Tyler Durden (Chuck Palahniuk), Fight Club

You know how this all works.

If you have to point out that some­thing is “mod­ern”, it prob­ably isn’t.
If you have to point out that some­thing is “cool”, it prob­ably isn’t.
If you have to point out that some­thing is “awe­some”, it prob­ably isn’t.

As fol­lows:

If you have to point out that some­thing is unique, it prob­ably isn’t.

“Books serve to show a man that those ori­gin­al thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.”

— Abraham Lincoln

And now we’re get­ting closer to the actu­al reas­on for avoid­ing using the word “unique” in your PR material:

It’s not because the term is so easy to mis­use.
It’s not because the term has been over­used and lost its mean­ing.
It’s not because it’s a sure sign of cor­por­ate cringe.

No, it would be best if you did­n’t use the word “unique” in PR because …

… if you have some­thing unique on offer, why go wast­ing that rare PR oppor­tun­ity by telling every­one? Instead, show them.