Week 07 · Introduction to Marketing
Davood Wadi, PhD
Welcome to Week 7 of Introduction to Marketing.
Today we focus on the first P of the marketing mix: Product.
We will explore what makes a product successful from inception to decline.
A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption.
It includes physical objects, services, events, persons, places, organizations, and ideas.
Products solve problems and deliver value to consumers.
Each of these is offered to a market, so each is a product. Which kind of product is it?
The city itself is being offered for attention and a visit, so the product is a place.
A festival happens on set dates, so the product is an event.
Nothing is sold here. The campaign offers a way of thinking and acting, so the product is an idea.
People are asked to back the charity as a whole, so the product is an organization.
The player is the one being offered to the brands, so the product is a person.
The customer pays for work done for them, so the product is a service.
The bike is a thing the buyer takes away, so the product is a physical object.
Which concept does this case show?
Consumer goods are bought by final consumers for personal consumption.
Convenience goods are purchased frequently with minimal comparison (e.g. toothpaste).
Shopping goods require more planning and comparison on quality, price, and style (e.g. furniture).
Specialty goods have unique characteristics or brand identification requiring special purchase effort (e.g. luxury cars).
Unsought goods are products consumers do not normally think of buying (e.g. life insurance).
Each category requires a distinct marketing and pricing strategy.
Which kind of consumer good is each purchase?
It is bought often and with minimal comparison, like toothpaste.
The buyer plans and compares on quality, price, and style, like furniture.
Strong brand identification leads to special purchase effort, like a luxury car.
It is a product consumers do not normally think of buying, like life insurance.
It is bought frequently with little thought about alternatives.
This takes more planning and comparison on quality, price, and style.
Which concept does this case show?
The Product Life Cycle (PLC) describes the course of a product's sales and profits over its lifetime.
It consists of five distinct stages: development, introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.
Not all products follow this cycle strictly, but it provides a useful framework for strategy.
Put the five stages of the product life cycle in order, from first to last.
Tap a step, then the number where it belongs.
During introduction, sales are slow and profits are nonexistent due to heavy investment.
The marketing goal is to create product awareness and trial.
During growth, the product achieves rapid market acceptance and increasing profits.
The firm focuses on maximizing market share as competition enters.
Maturity is a period of slowdown in sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by most potential buyers.
Profits level off or decline due to increased marketing outlays to defend against competition.
Decline is the period when sales fall off and profits drop.
Management may decide to maintain, harvest, or drop the declining product.
A legacy software product has steadily declining user numbers, but a core group of businesses still rely on it.
Shutting it down will upset loyal clients, but keeping it running costs engineering resources.
Discussion: Do you harvest the remaining profits by cutting all support, or do you gracefully retire the product and force migration to a new system?
Companies must continually innovate to replace declining products.
New products can be original products, improvements, modifications, or new brands.
Innovation carries high risk, with many new products failing in the marketplace.
Idea generation and screening start the process by sourcing and filtering new concepts.
Concept development and testing involve testing the idea with a group of target consumers.
Marketing strategy development outlines the initial marketing strategy for the new product.
A snack company is working on a new protein bar. Which step of the process is each moment?
The company is sourcing new concepts.
The team is filtering the concepts it has.
The idea is being tested with a group of target consumers.
This outlines the initial marketing strategy for the new product.
Trying the idea on target consumers is concept testing.
Which concept does this case show?
Business analysis evaluates the business attractiveness of the proposal.
Product development turns the concept into a physical and testable prototype.
Test marketing introduces the product and marketing program into realistic market settings.
Commercialization is the final step of introducing the new product into the market.
A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design that identifies the maker or seller of a product.
It represents the consumer's perceptions and feelings about a product and its performance.
Brand equity is the differential effect that knowing the brand name has on customer response to the product or its marketing.
In a blind taste test, shoppers rate two colas the same. When the labels are shown, they rate one far higher and say they would pay more for it. What does that difference show?
Brand positioning establishes the brand's mission and vision in the consumer's mind.
Brand name selection requires finding a name that suggests benefits, is easy to pronounce, and is distinctive.
Brand sponsorship options include manufacturer brands, private brands, licensed brands, or co-branding.
Packaging involves designing and producing the container or wrapper for a product.
It serves multiple functions: protecting the product, attracting attention, and describing the product.
Labeling identifies the product, grades it, describes it, and promotes the product through attractive graphics.
Services are a form of product that consists of activities, benefits, or satisfactions offered for sale.
They are essentially intangible and do not result in the ownership of anything.
The service economy is growing rapidly and dominates modern markets.
After paying, does the buyer own something, or have they bought a service?
Tap a card, then tap the group it belongs to.
Intangibility means services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or smelled before purchase.
Variability means the quality of services depends on who provides them and when, where, and how.
Inseparability means services cannot be separated from their providers.
Perishability means services cannot be stored for later sale or use.
Service firms must manage the interaction between the customer and the frontline employee.
Service profit chain links service firm profits with employee and customer satisfaction.
Internal marketing means the firm must orient and motivate its customer-contact employees.
An airline has 50 empty seats on a flight departing in 24 hours. Once the plane takes off, the revenue opportunity for those seats is gone forever.
Offering deep last-minute discounts might fill the seats but could train customers to wait for cheap tickets in the future.
Discussion: How should the airline balance the immediate need to capture perishable revenue against long-term brand pricing power?
The product is the foundation of the marketing mix and requires careful lifecycle management.
Continuous new product development is essential for long-term growth and survival.
Strong branding and effective packaging create lasting consumer connections.
Services require distinct strategies to manage their intangibility, inseparability, variability, and perishability.