Products, Services & Brands Chapter: 8 Lec: 7a

What is a product? Product Anything that could be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. Service Any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything

Products, Services, and Experiences Product is the key element in the overall market offering -pure tangible goods e.g. soap, toothpaste, pen - pure services e.g. doctor’s exam - combination of goods and services e.g. restaurant (food + service)

Products, Services, and Experiences

Experiences -customer experience is important - becoming important with each passing day e.g. Disney, Kingfishers

Service

Levels of Product and Services Product planners need to think about products and services on three levels Each level adds more customer value 1- what is the buyer really buying? e.g. blackberry (connectivity on the go) 2- Turn the core benefit into an actual product - brand name, packaging, design, features etc. 3- Augmented product - additional consumer services and benefits

Levels of Product and Services

Brand name Quality level Core customer value Features Design Packaging Actual Product Augmented product After- Sale service Warranty Delivery and credit Product support

Product and Service Classifications Products and services fall into two broad categories Consumer Products Industrial Products Consumer Products A product bought by final consumer for personal consumption

Product and Service Classifications Convenience product A consumer product that customers usually buy frequently, immediately, and with minimum of comparison and buying effort e.g. soft drink, chewing gum Shopping product A consumer product that the customer, in the process of selection and purchase, usually compares on such bases as suitability, quality, price and style. e.g. furniture, clothing

Product and Service Classifications Convenience product Shopping product

Product and Service Classifications Specialty product A consumer product with unique characteristics or brand identification for which a significant group of buyers is willing to make a special purchase effort e.g. designer clothes, refrigerators Unsought product A consumer product that the consumer either does not know about or knows about but does not normally think of buying e.g. preplanned funeral services

Specialty product

Product and Service Classifications Industrial product A product bought by individuals and organizations for further processing or for use in conducting a business. e.g. raw materials

Product and Service Classifications Organizations, persons, Places, and Ideas - Organizations: non-profit, to raise funds profit, corporate image - person: celebrities e.g. Shahrukh, Imran khan - Place: e.g. Malaysia truly Asia - Ideas: e.g. what an idea sir jee e.g. social messages

Place Marketing

People Marketing

Product and Service Decisions Product Quality The characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied customer needs - marketers major positioning tool - creating customer value and satisfaction TQM All the company’s people involved in constantly improving products quality

Individual product Decisions Product Attributes BrandingPackagingLabeling Product support services

Product and Service Decisions Product style and design style- appearance of the product design- product’s usefulness, as well as looks

Product and Service Decisions Brand A name, term, sign, symbol, design, or a combination of these that identifies the products or services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiate them from those of competitors - same quality every time they’ll buy the product - legal protection

Brands

Product and Service Decisions Packaging The activities of designing and producing the container or wrapper for a product - primary function: hold the product - package becomes a promotional medium - easy to open - product safety

Packaging

Product and Service Decisions Labeling - simple tags to complex graphics - who made it, where was it made, contents, how to be used Product support services - services that augment actual product - sales, after-sale services