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develops it. Sales in this stage are zero but huge research and development
budget
is required. Therefore company incurs losses at this stage.

2. Introduction stage; company introduce the product in the market. As the product is

new to the market awareness is usually very low. Here company adopts heavy sales

promotion and product awareness programs. The cost of product is very high and

sales are very low.

3.Growth Stage: company gets experience over the period and now tries to get
the

maximum market share. Sales will grow rapidly resulting in lesser cost and better

profit. Company reduces the price of the product and offers varieties and values in it.

It focuses on building better distribution network and pushes the product through it.

Therefore company needs less sales promotion. Number of competitors will grow

and it forces company to keep tab on them

4. Maturity Stage:
a) Peak Sales
b) Low cost per customer
c) High profit
d) Competition based pricing

e) Communicating the product differentiation to consumer

f) Improving supply chain efficiency

g) Defend the market share

h) Industry experience the consolidation

5. Decline stage: in this stage, product sales and profit decline. Company should phase

out weak from their product mix. The advertisement budget of the company come

down.

Product
develop
 ment
stage

Introduction
Growth
MaturityDecline
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Q.6 Describe various bases for positioning the product with example.
Ans: The base for positioning strategies that are available are:
1. Attribute positioning: A company position itself on an attribute such as size or number of
year
in existence. Sun feast position its snacky brand as bigger and lighter and crisper

2. Benefit positioning: The product is positioned as the leader in a certain benefits e.g Hyundai santro headlines as “India

best-loved family car is now also india simplest car to drive. “ and Subhead “no shifting gears, no clutch, no

problem.

3. Use or application positioning: Positioning the product as best for some use and
application
e.g Kenstar positioning its product as unexpectedly cold.
4. User positioning: Positioning the product as best for some user group e.g Parle-G the boy
was positioned as some rock star. Advertisement target kids and boy.

5. Competitor Positioning: the product claims to be better in some than a named competitor, in

this advertisement mathrubumi base line say in the wake of abc result, mathrubhumi

celebrates the addition of 33960 copies while nearest competitor laments the loss of 7258

copies. Planner take note it is directly mentioning its and competitors sales of newspaper.

6. Product category positioning: The product is positioned as the leader in a certain product

category. Bajaj CT 100 was positioned as leader in the entry segment bikes

7. Quality or price positioning: the product is positioned as offering the best value. The vegetable

oil brand dhara positioning it self as anokhi shuddata, anokha assar. This mean company

offer unique purity and unique effect.

Q.4 Write a short note on consumer buying behavior.

Ans:
Consumer buying behavior: Customer who are representing this behavior are highly
involved in the

very high. E.g customer who wants to purchase refrigerator would like to know the meaning of

defrosting, door lock, digital temperature control. The price of the product usually high let me show

you the comparison of three brands and significant difference between them.

Dissonance reducing buying behavior: the behavior exhibited by the customer when
product
 purchase required high involvement but only few difference exist. E.g customers who want to

purchase CTV will not find many differences between the brands but the price of the product and its

technicality makes coustomer to involve more.

Variety-seeking buying behavior: When there are significant difference between the brands
existing

but customer will not involve more while purchasing marketer identify this behavior as variety seeking

buying behavior. Lets us discuss the purchasing behavior of customer for biscuits. There are many

varieties of biscuits available. The customer who purchased Britannia tiger earlier may purchase sun

feast cream biscuit next time. This doesn’t mean that quality of Britannia tiger is inferior to other brand

but customer would like to try the varieties available in the market. In this situations marketer should

undertake following steps

a) The market leader should encourage customers to buy repeatedly

b) Make the product available and visible to the customer in the shopping places

c) The firm who are not market leader should come out with sales promotion techniques to

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encourage customer to purchase the product

Habitual buying behavior: the low involvement between the brands and few difference between the

brands leads to habitual buying behavior. E.g example spice powder marketed by MDH, Everest or

MTR have very few difference between them and customer do not search the information to purchase

particular product. Marketers whose customer represent this category follow below listed strategies

a) Use price and sales promotion to stimulate product trial

b) Use more visual aspect than the wording in the advertisement

c) Television is the better media for this type of products

d) Use classical conditioning theory to create advertisement.