Session 11 - Product 1

Question 1

What is a product manager’s job?

Answer 1

• Manage existing products
  Such as: define the product, life cycle, product line, product mix
• Launch New products
• Manage brand equity

Question 2

What is a product?

Answer 2

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

Question 3

What are the three levels of products?

Answer 3

1. Core customer Value
2. Actual Product
3. Augmented Product

Question 4

What is meant by core customer value?

Answer 4

Actual benefit that consumers seek

E.g. Cosmetics “We sell hope”

Smartphone “On-the-go connectivity

Question 5

What is meant by the actual product?

Answer 5

The quality, features, design, packaging, brand name.

Question 6

What is meant by augmented product?

Answer 6

Delivery and credit, warranty, after-sale service.

e.g. Rolex offers warranties and MBW offers after-sale service

Question 7

What are industrial products?

Answer 7

Products sold by one business to another to serve organizational needs (B2B)

Question 8

What are consumer products?

Answer 8

Products designed to satisfy non-organizational, individual needs.

Four Types: Convenience, shopping, specialty and unsought

Question 9

What are convenience goods?

Answer 9

Items that the consumer purchases frequently, conveniently, and with a minimum of purchase efforts. Frequently purchased, little planning, little comparison. Low customer involvement

Question 10

What are shopping goods?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

What are specialty goods>

Answer 11

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)

Question 12

What are unsought gods?

Answer 12

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

Question 13

What is product quality?

Answer 13

Characteristics of a product/service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied customer needs.

Question 14

What is total quality management?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

What are product features?

Answer 15

Features differentiate the company’s product from competitors’ products

Question 16

What is branding?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

What is product support?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What is a product line

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What is product line length?

Answer 19

Number of products in a product line

Question 20

What is product mix?

Answer 20

Aka product portfolio. It is all the product lines offered by the company

Question 21

What is the product life cycle?

Answer 21

It descries the stages a new product goes through in the marketplace : Introduction, growth, maturity, decline.

Question 22

What are the four premises that the product life cycle are built on?

Answer 22

1. Products have limited life
2. Product sales pass through distinct stages, each with different marketing implications
3. profits from a product vary at different stages in the life cycle
4. Products require different life cycle stages

Question 23

Do all products actually follow the product life cycle?

Answer 23

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

Question 24

What is the introduction stage?

Answer 24

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

Question 25

What is growth stage/

Answer 25

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

Question 26

What is maturity stage?

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What is decline stage?

Answer 27

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