DP - Development and Planning [OVERVIEW]

Development and Planning

Introduction

In marketing, the word "product" is used to identify the variety of solutions a marketer provides to its customers. In this unit the term "product" will cover the offerings in the following categories:

  • Goods – are tangible items, something that can be seen, touched, smelled, or heard, for example, computers, macaroni and cheese and clothing.
  • Services – are intangible and performed by employees for clients, for example dry cleaning, a haircut, or car maintenance.
  • Ideas – is an attempt to persuade a customer to behave in a certain way, for example wearing your seat belt, putting your trash in the trash can. Most ideas come from a not for profit or government groups.

Most businesses offer a variety of products and services, many companies like Best Buy, will sell the computer but will also sell the service to your computer. The products and services usually add value to company, the service making the product better and the product making the service necessary.

Essentials Questions

  1. What is the nature and scope of the product/service management function?
  2. How do businesses determine which products to produce and sell?
  3. How are products/services positioned in the market place?
  4. What is the concept of product mix and product/service branding?
  5. What is the nature of product bundling?
  6. What is the nature of corporate branding?
  7. How do you identify product opportunities?
  8. What methods/techniques can be used to generate a product idea?

Key Terms

  • Brand - A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. 
  • Extension - A product line extension marketed under the same general brand as a previous item or items. A brand extension is usually aimed at another segment of the general market for the overall brand.
  • Brand Mark - The brand mark is that part of a brand name that cannot be spoken. It most commonly is a symbol, picture, design, distinctive lettering, color, or a combination of these. Brand Name - The brand name is that part of a brand that can be spoken. It includes letters, numbers, or words.
  • Category Management - The marketing of the several brands falling under a generic product category such as coffee, dessert, and oral hygiene. This may be done by allocating funds and marketing effort according to the profit potential of each brand in the mix also deleting weak brands and adding new brands with higher profit potential.
  • Descriptive Label - The use of descriptive information (e.g., size, ingredients, or use) on labels. This contrasts with grade labeling, in which code letters or numbers are used to describe the relative quality of goods.
  • Generic Brands - A product that is named only by its generic class (e.g., drip-grind coffee, barber shop). Generic brand products are often thought to be unbranded, but their producer or reseller name is usually associated with the product, too. This approach is usually associated with food and other packaged goods, but many other consumer and industrial products and services are marked as generics.
  • Grade Label - A system of identification that describes products by their quality, using agreed-on numbers or letters. The grade classes (standards) and the requirements for each are usually assigned by a government or trade group, and the actual scoring is sometimes done by inspectors.
  • Label - The information attached to or on a product for the purpose of naming it and describing its use, its dangers, its ingredients, its manufacturer, and the like.
  • Mixed Bundling - The practice of offering for sale two or more products or services either at individual prices or for one single price. The single price for the ''bundle'' is usually less than the sum of the individual prices.
  • National Brands - A brand that is marketed throughout a national market. It contrasts with regional brand and local brand
  • Package - The container used to protect, promote, transport, and/or identify a product. The package may vary from a plastic band wrap to a steel or wooden box.
  • Planograms - A visual plan showing the physical allocation of product display space within a product grouping used for standardizing merchandise presentation.
  • Price Bundling - The practice of offering two or more products or services for sale at one price.
  • Product Life Cycle - The product life cycle has four stages (1) introduction-the slow sales growth that follows the introduction of a new product (2) growth-the rapid sales growth that accompanies product acceptance (3) maturity-the plateauing of sales growth when the product has been accepted by most potential buyers and (4) decline-the decline of sales that results as the product is replaced (by a substitute) or as it goes into disfavor.
  • Product Line - A group of products marketed by an organization to one general market. The products have some characteristics, customers, and/or uses in common, and may also share technologies, distribution channels, prices, services, etc. There are often product lines within product lines
  • Product Mix - The full set of products offered for sale by an organization. The product mix includes all product lines and categories.
  • Product Modification - The altering of a current product so as to make it more appealing to the market place.
  • Product Planning - making decisions about what features should be used in selling a business's products, services, or ideas
  • Product Positioning - How the innovator firm decides to compare the new item to its predecessors and creates an impression in the customers mind.
  • Trade Name - A trademark that is used to identify an organization rather than a product or product line.
  • Trade Character - people, animals, animated characters, objects, or the like that are used in advertising a brand and that come to be identified with the brand, in much the same way that a trademark is identified with a brand
  • Trademark - A legal term meaning the same as brand, it includes the brand name and brand mark. A trademark identifies one seller's product and thus differentiates it from products of other sellers.

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