Chapter – 8 : Products.

Services, and Brands:

• Product: Anything that can be offered t a market for attention,
acquisition, use, or consumption, that might satisfy a want or
need.
• Service: Any activity or benefit offered to another that is
essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership.
• Levels of Product and Services: Each level adds more
customer value. Most basic level is core customer value, which
addresses question What is buyer really buying. A woman buying
lipstick buys more than lip color. Make cosmetics in factory store,
sells hope.
• Consumer Product: A product bought by final consumer for
personal consumption.
• Convenience product: Customers usually buy frequently,
immediately, and with a minimum of comparison and buying
effort.
• Shopping Product: Customer, in process of selection and
purchase, usually compares on such bases as suitability, quality,
price, and style.

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By Prof: Zafarulla
Specialty Product:
• A consumer product with unique characteristics or brand identification
for which a significant group of buyers is willing to make a special
purchase effort.
• Unsought product: A consumer product that consumer either does not
know about or knows about but does not normally think of buying.
• Industrial Product: A product bought by individuals and organizations
for further processing or for use in conducting a business.
• Special Marketing: Use of commercial marketing concepts and tools in
programs designed to influence individuals behavior to improve their
well-being and that or society.
• Product and Service Attributes: Product quality characteristics of a
product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied
customer needs.
• Individual Product Decisions:
1) Product attributes.
2) Branding.
3) Packaging.
4) Labeling.
5) Product support services.

Principles of Marketing 2
By Prof: Zafarulla
 Product Features:
• A product can be offered with varying features. A stripped down model, one without
any extras, is starting point. Company can create higher-level models by adding
more features.
• Product Style and Design: Another way to add customer value is through
distinctive product style and design.
• Tata Nano. In January, 2008 Called people’s car price of Rs.100,000, it is a small,
affordable, rear-engine, four-passenger car targeted primarily at Indian middle-class
consumers.
• Brand: A name, term, sign, symbol, design, or a combination of these that identifies
products or services and differentiates them from those of competitors.
• Packaging: Activities of designing and producing container or wrapper.
• Product Line: A group of products that are closely related because they function in
a similar manner, are sold to same customer groups, are marketed through same
types of outlets, or fall within given price ranges.
• Gap runs several clothing-store chains (Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic)
covering different price points.
• Product line when a company lengthens its product line beyond it current range.
Company can stretch its line downward, upward, or both ways. Companies located
at upper end of market can stretch their lines downward.
• Product lines upward. Companies stretch upward in order to add prestige to their
current products.

Principles of Marketing 3
By Prof: Zafarulla
Product Mix (or Product Portfolio):
• Product mix has four important dimensions: width,
length, depth, and consistency.
• Product mix width refers to number of different
product lines company carries.
• Product mix length refers to total number of items
company caries within its product lines.
• Product mix depth refers to number of versions
offered of each product.
• Consistency of product mix refers to how closely
related various product lines are in end use.
• Brand Equity: Differential effect that knowing brand
name has on customer response to product or its
marketing.

Principles of Marketing 4
By Prof: Zafarulla
Building Strong Brands:
• Brand Positioning: Attributes, benefits beliefs and values.
• Brand name Selection: Selection, Protection.
• Brand Sponsorship: Manufacture’s brand, private brand, licensing, co-
branding.
• Brand Development: Line extensions, Brand extensions, multi-brands,
new brands.
• A national brand (or manufacturer’s brand) manufacturer may sell to
resellers who give product a private brand (also called a store brand or
distributor brand). Although most manufacturers create their own brand
names, others market licensed brands. Two companies can join forces
and co-brand a product.
• Line Extension: Extending an existing brand name to new forms, colors,
sizes, ingredients, or flavors of an existing product category.
• Bata regular shoes, premium shoes, sports shoes, sandals, socks, and
several others like monsoon wear.
• Geo-News ventures into entertainment and sports genres.
• Brand Extension: Extending an existing brand name to new product
categories.
• Nestle has leveraged strength of its Maggi brand to launch several lines:
Maggi Noodles, Maggi Tomato Ketchup, and Maggi Soups.
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By Prof: Zafarulla
Services Marketing:
• Intangibility: Services cannot be seen, tasted, felt,
heard, or smelled before purchase.
• Inseparability: Services cannot be separated from
their providers.
• Variability: Quality of services depends on who
provides them and when, where and how.
• Perishability: Services cannot be stored for later
sale or use.
• International Marketing: Orienting and motivating
customer-contact employees and supporting service
people to work as a team to provide customer
satisfaction.
• Interactive Marketing: Training service employees
in fine art of interacting with customers to satisfy
their needs.
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By Prof: Zafarulla
Managing Service Differentiation:

• British airways offers spa services at its Arrivals Lounge at

Heathrow airport and softer in-flight beds, plumper pillows,
and cozier blankets. “Our simple goal is to deliver best
service you could ask for, without you having to ask.”
• Service companies can differentiate their service delivery by
having more able and reliable customer contact people, by
developing a superior physical environment in which service
product is delivered.
• Managing Service Quality: Unfortunately, service quality is
harder to define and judge than product quality. It is harder to
agree on quality of a haircut than on quality of a hair dryer.
• Managing Service Productivity: Increase quantity of their
service by giving up some quality. Provider can “industrialize
service” by adding equipment and standardizing production,
as in Mc Donald’s assembly-line approach to fast-food
retailing.

Principles of Marketing 7
By Prof: Zafarulla