Product Concepts
What is Product?
The product offering, the heart of an orginizations marketing program, is usually the starting point in creating a marketing mix.
Product: May be defined as everything, both favorable and unfavorable, that a person receives in an exchange.
Types of Consumer Products
Products can be classified as either business or consumer products, depending on the buyers intentions.
Business Product: A product used to manufacture other goods or services, to facilitate an organizations operations, or to resell to other customers.
Consumer Product: a product bought to satisfy an individuals personal wants.
Convenience Product: a relatively inexpensive product that merits little shopping effort
Shopping Product: a product that requires comparison shopping because it is usually more expensive than a convenience product and is found in fewer stores.
Specialty Product: a particular item for which consumers search extensively and are very reluctant to accept substitutes.
Unsought Product: a product unknown to the potential buyer or a known product the buyer does not actively seek.
Product Items, Lines, and Mixes
Rarely does a company sell a single product. More often, it sells a variety of things.
Product Item: A specific version of a product that can be designated as a distinct offering among an organization’s products.
Product Line: a group of closely related product items.
Product Mix: all products that an organization sells.
Product Mix Width: the number of product lines an organization offers.
Product Line Depth: the number of product items in a product line.
Product Modifications: changing one or more of a product’s characteristics.
Planned Obsolescence: the practice of modifying products so those that have already been sold become obsolete before they actually need replacement.
Product Line Extension: adding additional products to an existing product line in order to compete more broadly in the industry.
Branding
The success of any business or consumer product depends in part on the target markets ability to distinguish one product from another.
Brand: a name, term, symbol, design, or combination thereof that identifies a seller’s products and differentiates them from competitors products.
Brand Name: That part of a brand that can be spoken, including letters words and numbers.
Brand Mark: the elements of a brand that cannot be spoken.
Brand Equity: the value of company and brand names.
Global Brand: a brand that obtains at least a third of its earnings from, outside its home country, is recognizable outside its home base of consumers, and has publicly available marketing and financial data.
Brand Loyalty: consistent preference for one brand over all others.
Manufactures Brand: the brand name of a manufacture
Private Brand: a brand name owned by a wholesaler
Captive Brand: a brand manufactured by a third party for an exclusive retailer, without evidence of retailers