Product and Brand Management

Roll No:- M20141

Q1.
Phase Competition Marketing Purpose Promotion strategy
Intro Low To explain your purpose Awareness, Sampling,
Stimulate Demand
Growth Some To reach out to more Aggressive Ads,
people Stimulate Demand
Maturity Fierce To show your product is Advertise, Promote
unique heavily
Decline Low/Med To get rid of out-dated Phase out of promotion
products

Q2.
BCG Matrix:
Created by the Boston Consulting Group, the BCG matrix – also known as the Boston or
growth share matrix
Here is a breakdown of each BCG matrix quadrant:
1. Stars: The business units or products that have the best market share and generate the
most cash are considered stars.
2. Cash Cows: A cash cow is a market leader that generates more cash than it consumes.
3. Dogs: Dogs, or pets as they are sometimes referred to, are units or products that have
both a low market share and a low growth rate.
4. Question Marks: These parts of a business have high growth prospects but a low market
share.

Product life Cycle (PLC) 

“The life-cycle of a product has many points of similarity with the human life cycle; the
product it born, grown lustily, attains dynamic maturity, then enters its declining years.”
The stages and its characteristics are:
A. Market Introduction Stage: The characteristics of this stage are:
1. Costs are very high
2. Slow sales volumes to start
3. Little or no competition
B. Growth stage: The characteristics of this stage are:
1. Costs reduced due to economies of scale
2. Sales volume increases significantly
3. Profitability begins to rise
C. Maturity stage: The characteristics of this stage are:
1. Costs are lowered as a result of production volumes increasing and experience curve
effects
2. Sales volume peaks and market saturation is reached
3. Increase in competitors entering the market
D. Saturation and decline stage: The characteristics of this stage are:
1. Costs become counter-optimal
2. Sales volume decline
3. Prices, profitability diminish

Relationship between PLC and BCG:

a. The concept of the product life cycle is fundamental to understanding how product
portfolios will evolve over time through the quadrants of the BCG matrix.
b. Conceptually, the product life cycle, suggests that most product portfolios will categories
will progress through different stages of rates of growth
c. Introduction is very early growth, while a mature market should also have a small level of
growth, usually almost in line with increases in GDP.
d. This second point highlights the typical product life-cycle pattern
f. While cash cows and dogs will only exist during times of maturity and decline.
g. Therefore, new product portfolios categories will start off as either a star or as a question
mark and then in the longer term will progress downwards (to either a cash cow or a dog).

As per the Bryan Law 2008. There are 9 P’s in the marketing mix which are as follows:

1. Product: Product is defined as a tangible object or an intangible object which can be sold.
Example: Gasoline and Pen
2. Price: This is defined as the amount that is paid for purchasing the product
Example: A liquor company might be able to charge tenfold what a bottle of vodka is really
worth by putting it in a fancy package, or a grocery story might sell eggs for 50 cents on the
dollar to get customers through the doors.
3. Place: This is the location from where the object can be purchased. It can be a physical
store or an online store as well.
Example:  You want to open a lemonade stand. Unless you’re planning on selling something,
say pink lemonade, that no other stand in your neighbourhood offers, or you’re confident
that your lemonade is going to taste better than your competition, you should focus on
finding a new product.
4. Promotion: This involves the marketing and promotional strategies used by the brand to
create awareness and to attract people to buy their object.
Example: Not to dwell on the Wiener mobile, but this is a nice way to start and end this
piece with frankfurters.
5. People: These are the employees or partners who contribute in the manufacturing,
transport and sales of the object.
Example: Workers, Management People
6. Process: This is the procedure that is followed for manufacturing and delivering the object
to the customer
7. Physical Evidence: This is the offline presence of a brand which allows the customers to
experience the brand and object before purchasing the object.
Example: Websites, Paperwork.
8. Packaging: This is an important factor because the object being sold must be delivered
safely to the consumers, and for that packaging is very crucial.
Example: Images of singers and Actors
9. Payment: This is the means through which the payment for the object is done.
Example: Delivery of goods and services like biscuit, fan, chair.

Q3.
A product could be defined as an item that satisfies the needs and wants of a consumer. The
product could be tangible or intangible in nature. The components of the product include,
Core, Formal, Expected, Augmented, Potential.
1) Core - The core benefit is the fundamental need or wants that the customer satisfies
when they buy the product.
2) Formal - The generic product is a basic version of the product made up of only those
features necessary for it to function.
3) Expected - The expected product is the set of features that the customers expect when
they buy the product.
4) Augmented - The augmented product refers to any product variations, extra features, or
services that help differentiate the product from its competitors.
5) Potential - The potential product includes all augmentations and transformations the
product might undergo in the future. In simple language, this means that to continue to
surprise and delight customers the product must be augmented.
For example, we can consider chocolate as a product. The core benefit of eating a chocolate
is having something sweet to eat post a meal or just something sweet for a special occasion.
The formal product could be a chocolate bar or a candy. The expected product is a sweet
eatable that is Tasty, not too expensive, easily available and offers different variety. An
augmented product in this case could be poppers or lollipops or sweets that come with a
toy in it. Similarly the potential product could include additional changes brought to the
basic product, like chocolate jam.

Q5.
Another name of product mix is product assortment or product portfolio. Basically, it refers
to the complete set of products and or services offered by a firm. A product mix consists of
product lines, which are associated items that consumers tend to use together or think of as
similar products or services. The product mix of a firm is crucial to understand as it exerts a
profound impact on a firm’s brand image. Maintaining high product width and depth
diversifies a firm’s product risk and reduces dependence on one product or product line.
With that being said, unnecessary or non-value-adding product width diversification can
hurt a brand’s image.
Dimensions of a Product Mix:

1. Width
A company's width, also called as breadth, relates to the amount of product lines it offers.
For example, Kellogg’s product lines consist of:
• Ready-to-eat cereal,
• Pastries and breakfast snacks,
• Crackers and cookies, and
• Frozen/Organic/Natural goods
2. Length
The total number of goods in a company's product mix is referred to as length. Consider a
car manufacturer with two distinct product lines (3-series and 5-series). There are three
sorts of cars in each product line series. In this case, the company's product length would be
six.

3. Depth
The amount of variations within a product line is referred to as depth. Continuing with the
automobile company example from before, a 3-series product line would include coupe,
sedan, truck, and convertible models. In this example, the 3-series product line would have
four levels of depth.

4. Consistency
The degree to which product lines are tied to one another is referred to as consistency. It's
in regard to how they're used, produced, and distributed. Firms aiming to represent
themselves as a specialist producer or distributor benefit from stability in their product mix.
Furthermore, consistency helps to ensure that a company's brand image is consistent with
the product or service
Let's look at a simple Coca-Cola product mix as an example. Assume that Coca-Cola is in
charge of two product lines: soft drinks and juice (Minute Maid). Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite,
Diet Coke, and Coke Zero are soft drink products, while Guava, Orange, Mango, and Mixed
Fruit is Minute Maid juice goods. The product (mix) consistency of Coca-Cola would be high,
as all products within the product line fall under beverage. In addition, production and
distribution channels remain similar for all the products.

Q6.
A brand is the combination of properties within and outside an offering that gives it an
identity and makes it distinct from others. According to Kotler, a brand is a – Name, term,
sign symbol (or a combination of these) that identifies the maker or seller of the product. In
simple terms, a brand is the sum of all the attributes inherent to the offering, used to
develop the offering’s identity in the market.
Types of Brands

1. Corporate Brands
This is also called as organisational brand, as it is closely related to the organisations that
stand behind them. Fundamentally, these brands define those organisations and reassure
the consumers in the quality and the service of the companies. The Coca-Cola Company is a
perfect example of corporate brand identity as it markets many different products with
quality in mind, or to be precise more than 500 brands under its wing, which means that its
marketing strategy revolves around the brand name.

2. Product and Service Brands

Unlike corporate brands, product brands are not marketed as being part of a big label.
When individual products are being marketed without mentioning their parent brands, the
term “stand-alone” brands are being used. This means that consumers usually don’t know
details about the parent brand. A good thing about these types of brands is that they will
not suffer a damaged reputation if their umbrella brand or other house brands go through a
crisis and vice versa. Procter & Gamble can serve as a great example of this approach, as the
company developed more than 180 different, completely independent brands such as Ariel,
Tide, and Gillette.

3. Government brands
These are brands related to the way the government is acting towards citizens and entities.
Even though we cannot associate consumer choice with these brands, they do still exist and
are vital for boosting people’s trust in the way government does its business. However,
most are on the fence when it comes to their existence. Some people actually believe public
entities should focus on developing trust rather than using brand strategies to develop
public brands. Moreover, some brands are not public by nature but have become so present
in our lives that we almost assume they are a part of public services. Such brands are Google
and Facebook, which we can also call embedded brands.

4. Personal Brands
People build personal brands mainly to increase the number of their career options. Again,
social media plays an important role, and it can be even said that it is indispensable, in
creating and managing a personal brand. Having a profile on LinkedIn has become almost
mandatory for business professionals, but employees use other platforms to scan their
potential candidates too. Some experts dispute that personal branding is a type of brand
because no specific business model could commercialise it, but on the other hand, many
people create very detailed networking strategies and invest money and time in their
personal brand, all of which pays off ultimately.

5. Celebrity brands
Celebrities use their influence, household products, social media, appearances on various TV
shows, and even some not so glamorous methods such as starting gossip about themselves
or fabricating feuds with other celebrities in an attempt to stay in the spotlight and increase
their social media following.

6. Activist brand
Today’s marketplace is highly competitive, and it takes more than pure self-promotion to
become a famous brand. Besides, Millennials, who are soon expected to outnumber Baby
Boomers and who have become dominant global consumers, want brands to be more
socially, environmentally, and ethically conscious. One of the trailblazers when it comes to
cruelty-free beauty products, The Body Shop, persistently campaigns against animal testing
and at the same time delivers quality. Activism is a big part of this brand, and it contributes
to its popularity to a great extent.
These were the main different types of brands. Some more are Employer brand, Luxury
brand, Global Brand and Ethical brand.
Q7.
The new product development process is a systematic guide for all budding businesses and
entrepreneurs that will help them come up with a customer-oriented, high-quality product
that has the best chance of doing well in the highly competitive markets. The stages of a
New Product Development are explained as follow:
Stages of a New Product Development:

1. Idea Generation
The idea generation stage is the first step in the product development process. During this
stage, the company generates a variety of original ideas from both internal and external
sources. Internal idea sources are usually the company's in-house research and
development teams, while external sources are things like competition innovations, client
desires, distributors and suppliers, and so on. As a result, the organisation concentrates on
coming up with as many viable concepts as possible.

2. Ideas Screening
The next step is to filter this often-large group of ideas. The main goal of this stage is to
concentrate on concepts that align with the company's customer value and financial
objectives. The goal of this stage is to weed out concepts that aren't good or realistic and
keep the ones that have a lot of potential.

3. Concept Development and Testing

Concept development and testing is the third step in the product development process.
Good product ideas must be developed into detailed product concepts that are
communicated in consumer-friendly ways at this level. The concept must be created in
order to project the product in terms of how consumers see it and how it may be received in
the market and by which group of potential buyers.

4. Marketing Strategy Development

The fourth stage of the marketing process is dedicated to the development of new products.
The corporation seeks to come up with ways to launch a potential product into the market
at this stage. In this step, the company must determine the price, prospective income
figures, as well as advertising and distribution networks.

5. Business Analysis
A thorough business analysis or test is conducted on the product concept in order to
determine predicted sales and revenue, as well as assess risk and determine whether the
product's production is financially possible.

6. Product Development
This is the stage that follows when a company's management determines a product concept
to be in line with the company's aims and gives it the green light to be developed. The
company's research and development department then works on the product concept for
months, if not years, to create a working and functional prototype of the product concept.
7. Test Marketing
This is the penultimate stage of the new product development process, and it entails putting
the product and the suggested marketing programme through its paces in real-world
scenarios. This stage gives the company insight into how the product will be launched to the
market, advertised, produced, packed, distributed, and eventually sold to clients, allowing
for any necessary optimisations.

8. Commercialisation
The process of commercialization is the last step in the product development process. The
business management may opt to proceed with the product launch or put it on the
backburner based on the information obtained throughout the test marketing phase. The
product is finally introduced into the market if the go-ahead is given, and this procedure is
known as commercialization. This period frequently results in significant costs, both in terms
of initial infrastructure investments and sales efforts and advertisements.
These were the eight steps of new product development.