1. Setting Product Strategy

2. The Main Mantra is “No matter what marketing strategy you make, at the end of the day, you implement through your marketing mix: Product, Place, Price and Promotion”

3. At the heart of the great brand is a great product. Product is the key to market offering To achieve market leadership, firms must offer products and services of superior quality that provide unsurpassed customer value. Marketing planning begins with formulating an offering to meet target customers’ needs or wants.

4. Product Characteristics and Classifications

5. What is a Product? A product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need, including physical goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organizations, information, and ideas

6. Five Product Levels Each level adds more customer value, and the five constitute a customer-value hierarchy. The fundamental level is the core benefit: the service or benefit the customer is really buying. At the second level, the marketer must turn the core benefit into a basic product. At the third level, the marketer prepares an expected product, a set of attributes and conditions buyers normally expect when they purchase this product. At the fourth level, the marketer prepares an augmented product that exceeds customer expectations. At the fifth level stands the potential product, which encompasses all the possible augmentations and transformations the product or offering might undergo in the future.

7. Product Levels: The Customer Value Hierarchy Core Benefits: Hotel: Buying rest and sleep Basic Product: Hotel room includes a bed, bathroom, towels, desk, dressers, and closet Expected Product: Hotel guests minimally expect a clean bed, fresh towels, working lamps and a relatively degree of quietness Augmented Product: Brand Positioning and Competition Potential Product: New ways to satisfy customers and distinguish their offerings

8. Product Systems and Mixes

9. Lengthening Product line in two ways – line stretching and line filling

10. Line Stretching Down-Market Stretch – Wal-Mart Store brands Up-Market Stretch – Toyota Lexus, Nissan’s Infiniti, Honda Acura Two-Way Stretch Titan (Titan Edge and Sonata Collection)

11. Other Product Line Decisions… Line Filling – adding more items in the present range Good Knight Repellent Mats Liquid vaporizer Mosquito repellent creams and lotions

12. What Is Cobranding? In co-branding—also called dual branding or brand bundling—two or more well- known brands are combined into a joint product or marketed together in some fashion. McDonalds and Coke

13. Ingredient Branding Intel Inside 1. Ingredient branding is a special case of co-branding. 2. It creates brand equity for materials, components, or parts that are necessarily contained within other branded products.

14. 1. Consumers must believe the ingredient matters to the performance and success of the end product. 2. Consumers must be convinced that not all ingredient brands are the same and that the ingredient is superior. 3. A distinctive symbol or logo must clearly signal that the host product contains the ingredient. 4. A coordinated “pull” and “push” program must help consumers understand the advantages of the branded ingredient. Requirements for successful ingredient branding

15. Product Life Cycle

16. Product Life Cycles Marketing Strategies 1.Products have a limited life. 2.Product sales pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities, and problems to the seller. 3.Profits rise and fall at different stages of the product life cycle. 4.Products require different marketing, financial, manufacturing, purchasing, and human resource strategies in each life- cycle stage.

17. Sales and Profit Life Cycles This curve is typically divided into four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. In the Introduction stage, there is a period of slow sales growth as the product is introduced in the market. Profits are nonexistent because of the heavy expenses of product introduction. In the Growth stage, there is a period of rapid market acceptance and substantial profit improvement. In the Maturity stage, there is a slowdown in sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by most potential buyers. Profits stabilize or decline because of increased competition. In Decline, sales show a downward drift and profits erode.

18. Marketing Mix at Different Stages Of PLC Introduction Stage As the product hits the market, it enters the introduction stage of the product life cycle. Because it is a new product that customers are not yet aware of, the product sales during the introduction stage are generally low. At this time, marketing expenses are generally high because it requires a lot of effort to bring awareness to the product. The marketing mix during this stage of the product life cycle entails strategies to establish a market and create a demand for the product.

19. Marketing Mix at Different Stages Of PLC Growth Stage As customers become aware of the product and sales increase, the product enters into the growth stage of the product life cycle. Marketing tactics during the growth stage requires branding that differentiates the product from other products in the market. Marketing the product involves showing customers how this product benefits them over the products sold by the competition.

20. Marketing Mix at Different Stages Of PLC Maturity Stage As the product gains over its competition, the product enters the maturity stage of the product life cycle. The marketing mix during this stage involves efforts to build customer loyalty, typically accomplished with special promotions and incentives to customers who switch from a competitors brand.

21. Marketing Mix at Different Stages Of PLC Decline Stage Once a product market is over saturated, the product enters into the decline stage of the product life cycle. This is the stage where the marketing mix and marketing efforts decline. If the product generated loyalty from customers, the company can retain customers during this stage, but does not attract new sales from new customers. For the marketing mix that remains during the decline stage, the focus is generally on reinforcing the brand image of the product to stay in a positive light in the eyes of the product’s loyal customers.

22. Packaging

23. What is the Fifth P? Packaging, sometimes called the 5 th P, is all the activities of designing and producing the container for a product.

24. Packaging Objectives Packaging must achieve a number of objectives: 1. Identify the brand. 2. Convey descriptive and persuasive information. 3. Facilitate product transportation and protection. 4. Assist at-home storage. 5. Aid product consumption. To achieve these objectives and satisfy consumers’ desires, marketers must choose the aesthetic and functional components of packaging correctly. Aesthetic considerations relate to a package’s size and shape, material, color, text, and graphics.

25. What Is a Service? A service is any act of performance that one party can offer another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything; its production may or may not be tied to a physical product. We are living and progressing towards service economy, In 2010, the share of the service sector in the GDP of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the United States was estimated at 55.3 percent, 52.9 percent, 54.6 percent, 57.6 percent, and 76.7 percent, respectively

26. Distinctive Characteristics of Services Intangibility Inseparability Variability Perishability

27. People Process Physical Evidence 4Ps Plus 3Ps = 7 Ps

28. Thank You!