Session 11 - Product 1 Flashcards
What is a product manager’s job?
- Manage existing products
Such as: define the product, life cycle, product line, product mix - Launch New products
- Manage brand equity
What is a product?
Anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need.
Services are a form of product: Activities, benefits, satisfactions. Are intangible and do not result in the ownership of anything
What are the three levels of products?
- Core customer Value
- Actual Product
- Augmented Product
What is meant by core customer value?
Actual benefit that consumers seek
E.g. Cosmetics “We sell hope”
Smartphone “On-the-go connectivity
What is meant by the actual product?
The quality, features, design, packaging, brand name.
What is meant by augmented product?
Delivery and credit, warranty, after-sale service.
e.g. Rolex offers warranties and MBW offers after-sale service
What are industrial products?
Products sold by one business to another to serve organizational needs (B2B)
What are consumer products?
Products designed to satisfy non-organizational, individual needs.
Four Types: Convenience, shopping, specialty and unsought
What are convenience goods?
Items that the consumer purchases frequently, conveniently, and with a minimum of purchase efforts. Frequently purchased, little planning, little comparison. Low customer involvement
What are shopping goods?
Items for which the consumer compares several alternatives on such criteria as prices, quality or style. Often things purchases less frequently, more planning and effort. Moderate to high involvement
What are specialty goods>
Items that a consumer makes a special effort to search out and buy. Associated with strong brand preference, loyalty, special purchase effort, low price sensitivity (e.g. ferrari, rolex, etc)
What are unsought gods?
Consumers either do not know about them or they do not want. Associated with low product awareness, if they are aware of the product, no or negative interest
What is product quality?
Characteristics of a product/service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied customer needs.
What is total quality management?
Approach in which all the company’s people are involved in constantly imporving the quality of products and business processes.
Best practice: Customer driven quality
What are product features?
Features differentiate the company’s product from competitors’ products
What is branding?
Name, term, sign, symbol, or design or a combination of them that allows people to identify one company’s products from another’s.
Customers attach meanings to brands and develop brand relationships
What is product support?
It is helping customers before, during and after the sale
An important part of the customer’s overall brand experience. Nordstrom: Take care of customers no matter what it takes. Before, during and after the sale
What is a product line
Group of closely related products because they function in a similar manner, are sold to the same group of customers, marketed through the same tpes of outlets or fall within given price range
What is product line length?
Number of products in a product line
What is product mix?
Aka product portfolio. It is all the product lines offered by the company
What is the product life cycle?
It descries the stages a new product goes through in the marketplace : Introduction, growth, maturity, decline.
What are the four premises that the product life cycle are built on?
- Products have limited life
- Product sales pass through distinct stages, each with different marketing implications
- profits from a product vary at different stages in the life cycle
- Products require different life cycle stages
Do all products actually follow the product life cycle?
No, but markets can aply the PLC as a framework for describing how products and markets work. Some products die quickly, while others stay in maturity stage for a ling time like coca cola
What is the introduction stage?
Product: Limited number of models, frequent modifications, intellectual property protection
Price: Usually high to recover developing costs
Promotion: Heavy advertising and promotion to build awareness, educate about benefits, use sampling to induce trial
Distribution: Limited, intensive efforts and high margins to attract wholesalers and retailers
What is growth stage/
Product: Improve quality, expand number of models, add new features
Price: Lowered prices to capture larger market share and as a result of competitve pressure
Promotion: Continue educating customers, differentiate from competition, build brand loyalty
Distribution: Access to larger market, efforts to establish long-term relationship with wholesalers, retailers and may target new market segments
What is maturity stage?
Product: large number of models, line extensions
Price: continues to fall
Promotion: Emphasize product differentiation, promote to retain delears and cusomters. Remind customers of past uses
Distributions: Extensive number of dealers, declining margins, intensive efforts to retain distributors and shelf space
What is decline stage?
Product: eliminate unprofitable models and rbands
Price: Stabilize at relatively low levels, small price rises possible if competition is negligible
Promotion: Advertising and promotion drasticaly decreases, sales promotion at low levels
Distribution: Unprofitable outlets phased out
