Product and Service Decisions
1. Product – Anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a need or want
2. Service – An activity or benefit that is INTANGIBLE (no ownership)
Idea of EXPERIENCES are more commonly used to enhance products and services
3 Levels of Product
Core benefit
Actual product
Associated services
Classifying Products
Consumer products
Business products
Consumer Products
Convenience
Frequent purchase, little planning, low price, mass production and wide distribution
Shopping
Less frequent, more shopping effort and price higher than convenience goods
Specialty
Strong brand, high price, exclusive distribution and carefully targeted promotions
Luxury goods such as Rolex watches or fine crystal
Unsought
Little awareness, pricing varies, distribution varies and aggressive advertising
Individual Product Decisions
Product features & benefit >> Packaging & labelling >> Branding
Feature – a characteristic of a product
Benefit – results from a feature (determine by adding “which means” after the desired feature)
Consumers buy benefits, not features
Brand building
Rational benefit
Emotional benefit
Packaging
Contain and protect
Promote product and brand
Instruct
Promote ease
Brand
Defined – a promise to deliver a specific set of features, benefits, services and experiences consistently to the target market
Branding Strategy
Building and managing brands is one of the most important tasks of marketers
The key means of defining what a product/service promises and how it differs from the competition
Brand Elements
Brand name
Slogan/phrase
Logo/symbol
Sound mark/jingles
Design
Characters
Benefits of Branding
To consumer
Shopping efficiency
Statement of who you are (value system)
To a company
Valuable asset that can increase value (long-term)
Brand Equity
Defined – the added value a given brand