Chapter 7 - Create the Product.docx

Marketing Chapter 7: Create the Product 1. Build a Better Mousetrap and Add Value A marketers task is twofold: first, to create a better value than whats out there already and second, to convince customers that this is true. Products can be physical goods, services, ideas, people or places. - Intangible products are services, ideas, people or places. 2. Layers of the Product There are three distinct layers of a product: the core product, the actual product and the augmented product. The Core Product Marketing is about supplying benefits, not attributes. - Example: A marketer may make and sell a 12.0 mm drill bit but a customer buys a 12.0 mm hole. The Actual Product The actual product includes the unique features of the product such as its appearance or styling, the package and the brand name. - Example: When you buy a washing machine, the core product is the ability to get clothes clean but the actual product is a large, square, metal apparatus. The Augmented Product Marketers know that adding supporting features to a product is an effective way for a company to stand out from the crowd. - Example: Apple revolutionized the music business when it created its iTunes Music Store that enables consumers to download titles directly to their digital music and video libraries. Its augmented product (convenience, extensive selection and ease of use) pays off handsomely for the company in sales and profits. 3. How Marketers Classify Products Marketers classify products into categories because they represent differences in how consumers and business customers feel about products and how they purchase different products. - This helps marketers develop new products and a marketing mix that satisfies customer needs. - Customers differ in how they decide on a purchase, depending on whether the decision maker is a consumer or a business purchaser. How Long Do Products Last? Marketers classify consumer goods as durable or nondurable depending on how long the product lasts. Consumers are more likely to purchase durable goods under conditions of high involvement, while nondurable goods are more likely to be low-involvement decisions. When marketers offer durable goods, they need to understand consumers desires for different product benefits and the importance of warranties, service and customer support so they must be sure that consumers can find the information they need. - When a company itself sponsors forums, odds are that the content will be much more favourable and the firm can keep track of what people say about its products. When consumers choose nondurable goods, they buy whatever brand is available and reasonably priced or they base their decisions largely on past experience. - In these cases, marketers can be less concerned with developing new product features to attract customers and instead should focus more on creating new uses for the existing product, as well as pricing and distribution strategies. How Do Consumers Buy Products? Marketers also classify products based on where and how consumers buy the product. In consumer contexts, both goods and services are viewed as convenience products, shopping products, specialty products or unsought products. - Consumer decisions differ in terms of effort they put into habitual decision making to limited problem solving to extended problem solving. Convenience products: - Consumers generally already know all they need or want to know about a convenience product, devote little effort to purchases and willingly accept alternative brands if their preferred brand is not available in a convenient location. There are several types of convenience products: - Staples: o When selling staples, marketers must offer customers a product that consistently meets their expectations for quality and make sure it is available at a price comparable to the competitions prices. o It is something consumers usually decide to buy in advance. - Impulse products: o Consumers buy these products on the spur of the moment. o When they want to promote impulse products, marketers have two challenges: to create a product or package design that is enticing and that reaches out and grabs the customer, and to make sure their product is highly visible. - Emergency products: o Consumers need the product badly and immediately so price and sometimes product quality may be irrelevant to their decision to purchase. - Shopping products: o The purchase of shopping products is typically a limited problem-solving decision. o Consumers often have little prior knowledge about these products. o Because consumers gather new information for each purchase occasion, they are only moderately brand loyal. In business-to-consumer e-commerce, consumers sometimes can shop more efficiently when they use intelligent agents or shopbots. Consumers usually know a good deal about specialty products and they tend to be loyal to specific brands.- Generally, a specialty product is an extended problem-solving purchase that requires a lot of effort to choose to the firms that sell these kinds of products need to create marketing strategies that make their product stand apart from the rest. Unsought products require a good deal of advertising or personal selling and is a real challenge to find convincing ways to interest people in these kinds of products. How Do Businesses Buy Products? Marketers classify business-to-business products based on how organizational customers use them. There are five different types of business-to-business products: - Equipment: o Marketing strategies for equipment usually emphasize personal selling and may mean custom-designing products to meet an industrial customers specific needs. - Maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products: o Although some firms use a sales force to promote MRO products, others rely on catalogue sales, the Internet and telemarketing in order to keep prices as low as possible. - Raw materials: o Turning one industrys waste materials into anothers raw material is a great business model. - Processed materia