MARKETING MANAGEMENT
SUMMARY
,Chapter 8: Products, Services, and Brands. Building Customer Value
What is a Product?
Product: anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, sue, or
consumption that might satisfy a want or need.
- Products also include services, events, persons, places, organisations, and ideas or
a mixture of these.
Service: an activity, benefit, or satisfaction offered for sale is essentially intangible and does
not result in the ownership of anything.
Products, Services, and Experiences
Products are a key element in the overall market offering. Market mix planning begins with
building an offering that brings value to targeted customers. This offering becomes the basis
on which the company builds profitable customer relationships.
To differentiate their offers, beyond simply making products and delivering services, they are
creating and managing customer experiences with their brands and companies. Today all
kinds of firms are recasting their traditional goods and services to create experiences.
Levels of Product and Services
Each level adds more customer value. “What is the
customer really buying?” When designing products,
marketers must:
1. Define the core, problem solving benefits,
services, or experiences that consumers
seek.
2. Turn the core benefit into an actual
product. They need to develop product and
service features, a design, a quality level, a
brand name, and packaging.
3. Build an augmented product offering
additional consumer services and benefits.
Customers see products as complex bundles of
benefits that satisfy their needs.
Products and Services Classifications
Two broad classes based on the types of consumers:
I. Consumer products: a product bought by the final consumer for personal
consumption.
- Convenience products: a consumer product that customers usually buy
frequently, immediately, and with minimal comparison and budget effort.
→ Usually low prices and placed in locations to be readily available. Mass
promotion.
Ex: laundry detergent, magazines, candy, fast food, etc.
, - Shopping products: a consumer product that the customer, in the process of
selecting and purchasing, usually compares, on such attributes as
sustainability, quality, price, and style. → higher price, and selective
distribution in fewer outlets. Advertising and personal selling by both producer
and reseller.
Ex: furniture, clothing, major appliances, hotel services, etc.
- Specialty products: a consumer product with unique characteristics or brand
identification for which a significant group of buyers is willing to make a
special purchase effort.→ highest price, and exclusive distribution in only one
or a few outlets per market area. More carefully targeted promotion by both
producers and resellers.
Ex: specific brands of cars, designer clothes, gourmet food, etc.
- Unsought products: a consumer product that the customer either does not
know about or knows about but does not normally consider buying. → both
price and distribution vary depending on the product. By the very nature,
unsought products require a lot of promotion, personal selling, and other
marketing efforts.
Ex: life insurance, preplanned funeral services, blood donations, etc.
II. Industrial products: a product bought by individuals and organisations for further
processing or for use in conducting a business.
- Materials and parts: include raw materials as well as manufactured
materials and parts.
- Capital items: industrial products that aid in the buyer’s production or
operations, including installations and accessory equipment.
- Supplies and services:
- Supplies include operating supplies and repair and maintenance
items.
- Business services include maintenance and repair services and
business advisory services.
The distinction between a consumer product and an industrial product is based on the
purpose for which the product is purchased
Organisations, Persons, Places, and Ideas
- Organisations often carry out activities to “sell” the organisation itself.
Organisational marketing consists of activities undertaken to create, maintain, or
change the attitudes and behaviour of target consumers toward an organisation.
Business firms sponsor corporate marketing campaigns to market themselves, their
images, and their ideals.
- People can also be thought of as products. Person marketing consists of activities
undertaken to create, maintain, or change attitudes or behaviour toward particular
people. Some people such as presidents, entertainers, sports figures, etc. use
person marketing to build their reputations.
- Place marketing involves activities undertaken to create, maintain, or change
attitudes or behaviour toward particular places: cities, regions, and even entire
nations compete to attract tourists, new residents, conventions, and company offices
and factories.
, - Ideas can also be marketed. In one sense, all marketing is the parking of an idea,
whether it is the general idea or a specific idea. Social marketing: the use of
traditional business marketing concepts and tools to encourage behaviours that will
create individual and societal well being.
- Many companies engage in social marketing to support ideas they believe in.
- Social marketing programs cover a wide range of issues.
Product and Service Decisions
Marketers make product and service decisions at three levels: individual product decisions,
product line decisions, and product mix decisions.
Individual Product and Service Decisions
I. Product and Services Attributes
Developing a product or service involves defining the benefits that it will offer. These
benefits are communicated and delivered by product attributes such as:
- Product Quality
One of the marketer’s major positioning tools. Quality affects product or
service performance, thus, it is closely linked to customer value and
satisfaction. Most marketers define quality in terms of creating customer value
and satisfaction. Several approaches to product quality:
a. Total quality management (TQM) → approach in which all the
company’s people are involved in constantly improving the quality of
products, services, and business processes.
b. Return on quality (ROQ) → approach viewing quality as an investment
and holding quality efforts accountable for bottom-line results.
Product quality has two dimensions:
1. Quality level: will support the product’s positioning
- Performance quality: the product’s ability to perform its
functions
2. Conformance quality: freedom from defects and consistency in
delivering a targeted level of performance. All companies should strive
for high levels of conformance quality.
Companies rarely try to offer the highest possible performance quality level.
- Product Features
A product can be offered with varying features. Features: a competitive tool
for differentiating the company’s product from competitors’ products. Being
the first producer to introduce a valued new feature is one of the most
effective ways to compete.
SUMMARY
,Chapter 8: Products, Services, and Brands. Building Customer Value
What is a Product?
Product: anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, sue, or
consumption that might satisfy a want or need.
- Products also include services, events, persons, places, organisations, and ideas or
a mixture of these.
Service: an activity, benefit, or satisfaction offered for sale is essentially intangible and does
not result in the ownership of anything.
Products, Services, and Experiences
Products are a key element in the overall market offering. Market mix planning begins with
building an offering that brings value to targeted customers. This offering becomes the basis
on which the company builds profitable customer relationships.
To differentiate their offers, beyond simply making products and delivering services, they are
creating and managing customer experiences with their brands and companies. Today all
kinds of firms are recasting their traditional goods and services to create experiences.
Levels of Product and Services
Each level adds more customer value. “What is the
customer really buying?” When designing products,
marketers must:
1. Define the core, problem solving benefits,
services, or experiences that consumers
seek.
2. Turn the core benefit into an actual
product. They need to develop product and
service features, a design, a quality level, a
brand name, and packaging.
3. Build an augmented product offering
additional consumer services and benefits.
Customers see products as complex bundles of
benefits that satisfy their needs.
Products and Services Classifications
Two broad classes based on the types of consumers:
I. Consumer products: a product bought by the final consumer for personal
consumption.
- Convenience products: a consumer product that customers usually buy
frequently, immediately, and with minimal comparison and budget effort.
→ Usually low prices and placed in locations to be readily available. Mass
promotion.
Ex: laundry detergent, magazines, candy, fast food, etc.
, - Shopping products: a consumer product that the customer, in the process of
selecting and purchasing, usually compares, on such attributes as
sustainability, quality, price, and style. → higher price, and selective
distribution in fewer outlets. Advertising and personal selling by both producer
and reseller.
Ex: furniture, clothing, major appliances, hotel services, etc.
- Specialty products: a consumer product with unique characteristics or brand
identification for which a significant group of buyers is willing to make a
special purchase effort.→ highest price, and exclusive distribution in only one
or a few outlets per market area. More carefully targeted promotion by both
producers and resellers.
Ex: specific brands of cars, designer clothes, gourmet food, etc.
- Unsought products: a consumer product that the customer either does not
know about or knows about but does not normally consider buying. → both
price and distribution vary depending on the product. By the very nature,
unsought products require a lot of promotion, personal selling, and other
marketing efforts.
Ex: life insurance, preplanned funeral services, blood donations, etc.
II. Industrial products: a product bought by individuals and organisations for further
processing or for use in conducting a business.
- Materials and parts: include raw materials as well as manufactured
materials and parts.
- Capital items: industrial products that aid in the buyer’s production or
operations, including installations and accessory equipment.
- Supplies and services:
- Supplies include operating supplies and repair and maintenance
items.
- Business services include maintenance and repair services and
business advisory services.
The distinction between a consumer product and an industrial product is based on the
purpose for which the product is purchased
Organisations, Persons, Places, and Ideas
- Organisations often carry out activities to “sell” the organisation itself.
Organisational marketing consists of activities undertaken to create, maintain, or
change the attitudes and behaviour of target consumers toward an organisation.
Business firms sponsor corporate marketing campaigns to market themselves, their
images, and their ideals.
- People can also be thought of as products. Person marketing consists of activities
undertaken to create, maintain, or change attitudes or behaviour toward particular
people. Some people such as presidents, entertainers, sports figures, etc. use
person marketing to build their reputations.
- Place marketing involves activities undertaken to create, maintain, or change
attitudes or behaviour toward particular places: cities, regions, and even entire
nations compete to attract tourists, new residents, conventions, and company offices
and factories.
, - Ideas can also be marketed. In one sense, all marketing is the parking of an idea,
whether it is the general idea or a specific idea. Social marketing: the use of
traditional business marketing concepts and tools to encourage behaviours that will
create individual and societal well being.
- Many companies engage in social marketing to support ideas they believe in.
- Social marketing programs cover a wide range of issues.
Product and Service Decisions
Marketers make product and service decisions at three levels: individual product decisions,
product line decisions, and product mix decisions.
Individual Product and Service Decisions
I. Product and Services Attributes
Developing a product or service involves defining the benefits that it will offer. These
benefits are communicated and delivered by product attributes such as:
- Product Quality
One of the marketer’s major positioning tools. Quality affects product or
service performance, thus, it is closely linked to customer value and
satisfaction. Most marketers define quality in terms of creating customer value
and satisfaction. Several approaches to product quality:
a. Total quality management (TQM) → approach in which all the
company’s people are involved in constantly improving the quality of
products, services, and business processes.
b. Return on quality (ROQ) → approach viewing quality as an investment
and holding quality efforts accountable for bottom-line results.
Product quality has two dimensions:
1. Quality level: will support the product’s positioning
- Performance quality: the product’s ability to perform its
functions
2. Conformance quality: freedom from defects and consistency in
delivering a targeted level of performance. All companies should strive
for high levels of conformance quality.
Companies rarely try to offer the highest possible performance quality level.
- Product Features
A product can be offered with varying features. Features: a competitive tool
for differentiating the company’s product from competitors’ products. Being
the first producer to introduce a valued new feature is one of the most
effective ways to compete.
