The Marketing Mix

• Product
• Place
• Promotion
• Price
 What is a product?
• A product is anything that can be offered to a
market for attention, acquisition, use or
consumption that might satisfy a need or want.
• A service is a series of activities, of a more or less
intangible nature and does not result in
ownership of anything.
• It must bring value to target customers and a
bases upon which the company builds profitable
customer relationship.
Levels of a product?
 Levels of Products
• Core customer value addresses “ what is the
customer really buying”
• Define the core problem solving benefits that
consumers seek
• S4 –On the go connectivity
• Turn core benefit into an actual product.
• Augmented profit
 Product classifications
• Consumer products: products bought by final
consumer for personal consumption-
convenience products, shopping products,
specialty products and unsought products.
• Industrial products: products bought by
individuals and organisations for further
processing or for use in conducting a business-
materials and parts, capital items, supplies and
services(convenience)
• Difference is with purpose of which the product
is bought.
 New Product Development
A firm can obtain new products in two ways:

• Through acquisition by buying a whole

company, patent or license to produce someone
else’s product

• Through new product development in the

company’s own research and development
department
 New product development

• The development of original products, product

improvements, product modifications, and new
brands through the firms own R & D efforts.
 The New Product Development
• Idea Generation
• Idea Screening
• Concept development and testing
• Marketing strategy development
• Business Analyses
• Product development
• Test marketing
• Commercialization
New Product Development
 Idea Generation
• Internal idea sources- employees
• External idea sources –suppliers, distributors,
competitors
 New Product Development Process Step
1. Idea Generation
Idea Generation is the Systematic Search for New
Product Ideas Obtained Internally From Employees and
Also From:
•Watching and listening to customers
•Watching competitors
•Distributors and suppliers
New Product Development Process Step 2.
Idea Screening

• Process to spot good ideas and drop poor ones as soon as

possible.

• Many companies have systems for rating and screening new -

product ideas

• Write up new product idea in a standard format that describes

the product , proposed customer value proposition, target
market and the competition.

• Then, the idea is evaluated against a set of general company

criteria.
• A product concept is a detailed version of the
new product idea stated in meaningful
consumer terms.
• Concept testing – testing new products
concepts with a group of target consumers to
find out if the concepts have strong consumer
appeal.
• Testing new products concepts with groups of
target consumers symbolically and physically.
 New Product Development Process
Step 3. Concept Development
Product Image is the Way
1. Develop New Product Ideas Consumers Perceive an
into Alternative Detailed Actual or Potential Product
Product Concepts

2. Concept Testing - Test the

New Product Concepts with
Groups of Target Customers

3. Choose the One That Has the

Strongest Appeal to Target
Customers
 Step 3
• Product idea: is an idea of a possible product
that the company can see itself as offering to
the market.
• Product concept: a detailed version of the new
product idea stated in meaningful consumer
terms.
• Product image: is the way consumers perceive
an actual or potential product.
New Product Development Process
Step 4. Marketing Strategy

Part One Describes Overall:

Target Market
Planned Product Positioning
Sales & Profit Goals
Market Share
Part Two Describes First-Year:
Value proposition, Product’s Planned Price
Distribution
Marketing Budget

Part Three Describes Long-Term:

Sales & Profit Goals
Marketing Mix Strategy
 Step 5. Business Analysis
Step 6. Product Development
• Evaluating business attractiveness
• Review of sales, costs, profit projections to find
out whether they satisfy the company’s
objectives.
• If product passes the business analysis test then
product development.
• Developing product concept into a physical
product to ensure that the product idea can be
turned into a workable market offering.
• Product idea- workable market offering
 Step 5. Business Analysis
Step 6. Product Development

Business Analysis
Review of Product Sales, Costs,
and Profits Projections to See if
They Meet Company Objectives

If No, Eliminate
Product Concept

If Yes, Move to
Product Development(concept into a
Physical product to assure that the idea
can turn into a workable product
 New Product Development Process
Step 7. Test Marketing

Test Marketing is the Stage of new product development in

which the Product and Marketing Program are Introduced
into More Realistic Market Settings.
New Product Development Process
Step 7. Test Marketing
Standard Controlled
Test Market Test Market

Full marketing campaign A few stores that have

in a small number of agreed to carry new
representative cities. products for a fee.

Simulated
Test Market

Test in a simulated
shopping environment
to a sample of
consumers.
 New Product Development Process
Step 8. Commercialization

Commercialization is the Introduction of

the New Product into the Marketplace.

When is the Where to

Right Time to Launch a
Introduce New
Product? Product?
 Conclusion
• Explain how companies find and develop new-
product ideas with reference to a company in
Ghana.

• List and explain the steps in the new-product

development process
 Product life cycle
• The course of a product’s sales and profits
over its lifetime.

• Product development
• Introduction
• Growth
• Maturity
• Decline
Product Life Cycle
 Introduction stage
• The stage in which the new product is first
distributed and made available for purchase
Characteristics include:
• Low sales
• Negative profits
• Customers are innovators
• Few competitors
• Marketing objective is to create product
awareness and trial
 Introduction stage strategies
• Product:Offer a basic product
• Price : Use cost-plus
• Distribution: Build selective distribution
• Advertising: Build product awareness among
early adapters and dealers
• Sales promotion:Use heavy sales promotion to
entice trial
 Growth stage
• The stage in which a products sales start
climbing quickly.
Characteristics includes:
• Rapidly rising sales
• Rising profits
• Customers are mainly early adopters
• Growing number of customers
• Improve product quality and add new product
features.
• Marketing objective: Maximize market share
 Growth stage strategies
• Product: Offer product extensions,
service,warranty
• Price :Price to penetrate market
• Distribution:Build intensive distribution
• Advertising: Build awareness and interest in the
mass market
• Sales promotion: Reduce to take advantage of
heavy consumer demand
 Maturity stage
• The stage in which sales growth slows or levels
out. This stage lasts longer
Characteristics include:
• Peak sales
• High profits
• Stable number of competitors and beginning to
decline
• Marketing objective: maximize profit while
defending market share
 Maturity stage strategies
• Product: diversify brand and models
• Price: price to match or best competitors
• Distribution: Build more intensive distribution
• Advertising: Stress brand differences and
benefits
• Sales promotion: Increase to encourage brand
switching
 Decline stage
• A stage in which the product’s sales decline
Characteristics include:
• Declining sales
• Declining profits
• Customers are mainly laggards
• Declining competitor numbers

• Marketing objective: Reduce expenditure and

milk the brand
 Decline stage strategies
• Product: phase out weak items
• Price: Cut price
• Distribution: Go selective: phase out unprofitable
outlets
• Advertising: reduce to level needed to retain
hard-core loyals
• Sales promotion: reduce to minimal level
 Special product Life-Cycle
• Style: It is a basic and distinctive mode of
expression.Once a style is invented,it may last for
generations, coming in and out of vogue
• Fashion:a currently accepted or popular style in a
given field. They tend to grow slowly,remain
popular for a while,then decline slowly.
• Fads:Fashions that enter quickly,are adopted with
great zeal,peak early,and decline very fast,
 Conclusion
• Define the product life-Cycle

• State and explain the various stages in the

product life-cycle
• Define other special life- cycled you know
offering relevant examples
 Thank you

• Questions and contributions

 Service Decisions
• Nature and significance of services
• Characteristics of services
• Issues of service quality
• Marketing implications for services
 What is a Service?
• A Service is a form of product that consist of
activities, benefits, or satisfactions offered for
sale that are essentially intangible and do not
result in the ownership of anything.
• Is a deed, processes or performance
• A series of activities of a more or less intangible
nature that normally take place in interaction
between customer and the service employee.
 Products, Services, and Experiences

Tangible Good With Service With

Pure Tangible Accompanying Hybrid Offer Accompanying Pure Service
Good Services Minor Goods
Nature and Characteristic of a Service

Services can not be seen,tasted

Intangibility Felt,heard or smelled before its
purchase

Services cannot be seperated

Inseparability From their providers

Quality of services depends on

Variability Who provides them and when,
Where and how

Perishability Services cannot be stored for

Later sale or use
 Marketing strategies for service firms
• Successful service firms focus their attention on
both their customers an employees
• They make use of the service-profit chain(the
chain that links service firm profits with
employee and customer satisfaction
1. Internal service quality
2. Satisfied and productive service employees
3. Greater service value
4. Satisfied and loyal customers
5. Healthy service profits and growth
 Mkting Strategies-Types of marketing in
service industries
• Internal marketing: Train and effectively motivate
its customer contact employees and all the
supporting service people to work as a team to
provide customer satisfaction
• External marketing: The normal marketing
involving the 4p’s
• Interactive marketing: A firm that recognises that
perceived service quality depends heavily on the
quality of buyer-seller interaction.
 Tasks of mkters; Managing Service
Differentiation
• The offer can include innovative features that set
one company’s offer apart from competitors
offer.
• Service firms can also differentiate their service
delivery by having more able and reliable
customer –contact people, superior physical
environment and designing a superior delivery
process
• Differentiating their images through symbols
and branding.
 Managing service quality
• Customer retention is the best measure of quality
• Consistency of value delivery
• Good service recovery through empowering front
line employees
• Watch service performance closely(both their
own and that of competitors)
• Communicate concerns about service quality to
employees and provide performance feedback.
 Managing service productivity
With cost rising service firms are under pressure to
increase service productivity.
• Train current employees better
• Hire new employees who will work harder or
more skillfully
• Increase the quantity of their service by giving up
some quality
• Harness the power of technology
• However companies must avoid pushing
productivity so hard that doing so reduces
quality.
 Conclusion
• What is a service?

• Identify and explain the four characteristics that

affect the marketing of services.

• How can a service firm in Ghana manage service

differentiation, quality and productivity?.
 Individual Product and Service
Decisions
• Product and Service Attributes
• Branding
• Packaging
• Labeling
• Product Support Services
 Product Attributes
• Product Quality- freedom from defect. Ability
of product to satisfy customer needs.
• Product Features- competitive tool for
differentiating a company’s product.
• Product Style and Design- a way to add
customer value is through product style and
design. Style-appearance of a product. Design-
how consumers will use and benefit from the
product.
 Branding
• Brand: A name ,term,sign,simbol or design, or a
combination of these intended to identify the
goods or services of one seller or group of
sellers and to differentiate them from those of
competitors.
• It has become so strong that today hardly
anything goes unbranded
 Importance of branding
• Assures customers
• Identifies the firm that manufactured the product.
• Helps address new target market
• Help consumers identify products that might benefit
them
• Tells buyers about product quality
• Offers security to buyers during repeat purchases
• For firms the brand name serves as a basis on which
a whole story of the products quality is built
• Provides legal protection against competitors
• Establish an image for a product or company
 Brand equity
• The differentiated effect that knowing the brand
name has on customer response to the product
or its marketing

• The value of a brand, based on the extent to

which it has high brand loyalty, name, awareness,
perceived quality, strong brand associations, and
other assets such as patents, trademarks and
channel relationships
 Importance of high brand equity to
firm
• Competitive advantages
• High level of consumer brand awareness and
loyalty
• More leverage in bargaining with resellers
• Because the brand name carries credibility, the
company can more easily launch line and brand
extensions
• Offers defence against fierce price competition
 Major branding decisions-building
strong brands
• Brand positioning- attributes, benefits, beliefs
and values
• Brand name selection: suggest product
benefit, MMLTAP
• Brand sponsor: manufacturers brand, private
brand, licensed brand, co-branding
• Brand strategy or development: Line
extensions, brand extentions, new brands,
multibrands
 Brand name selection
• It should suggest something about product
benefit and qualities
• Easy to pronounce, recognize and remember
• Should be distinctive
• The name should translate easily into foreign
languages
• Should be capable of registration and legal
protection
• Once chosen the name should be protected
 Brand sponsor
• Manufacturer’s brand(national brand):selling
their output under their own manufacturer’s
brand names
• Private brand: Manufacturers sell to resellers
who give it a private brand(store brand or
distributor brand)
• Licensing: acquiring and using names and
symbols previously created by other known
firms for a fee
• Co-branding: two companies joining forces to co
brand a product
 Brand strategy
• Line extension: existing successful brand names
extented to new forms ,sizes and flavors of an
existing product category
• Brand extensions: existing successful brand
name to launch a new or modified product in a
new category
• Multibrands:new brand names introduced in the
same product category e.g Procter and Gamble
in the detergent market with tide, ariel etc
 Brand strategy
• New brands: A firm may create a new brand
name when it enters a new product category for
which none of the company’s current brand
names are appropriate
 Packaging decisions
• The activities of designing and producing the
container or wrapper for a product.
• It represents the final appearance of the
product at the point of sale, it is therefore
important in product planning.
 Functions of Packaging
• Helps in promoting and selling a product
• Provides information
• Hold and protect the product
• Meeting customer specific need
• Ensuring safe use
• Helps create immediate consumer recognition of a
brand.
• Innovative packaging can give a company an advantage
over competitors and boost sales
• Protecting the product
• Cause packaging
 Labeling
• R simple and complex graphics that are part of
a package

• Describes several things about the product;

who, where, how and when…

• An information tag, wrapper, seal, imprinted

message that is attached to a product or its
package.
 Functions of Labeling
• Inform customers about product content and
directions for use
• It identifies products or brands
• Promote the brand, support its positioning
and connect with customers.
 Product Support Services
• A company’s offer usually includes some
support services which is a part of the total
offering.
 Product Line Decisions
• A product line is a group of product that are
closely related because they function in a
similar manner, are sold to the same customer
groups are marketed through the same types
of outlets, or fall within given price ranges.
• HP printer, cateridge
 Product Mix Decisions
• The set of all product lines and items that a
particular seller offers for sales.

• Eg. Sony: electronics, computer

entertainment, pictures and financial services
 Conclusion

• What is a brand ?
• Describe brand equity and the role of brands to
buyers and sellers.
• State and explain the four forms of branding
strategy