Product Strategy and Classification

Study Notes

A product is anything offered to a market for acquisition, use, or consumption to satisfy a want or need.
Products include: physical objects, services, people, places, organizations, and ideas.

Core Product: The most basic level, focusing on the problem-solving benefits the buyer receives.
Actual Product: Includes quality level, features, design, brand name, packaging.
Augmented Product: Additional consumer services and benefits beyond the core and actual product. Warranties, customer care, and financing are examples.

Products and services are categorized into two broad classes based on the end user: consumer products and industrial products.
Consumer Products: Purchased by individuals for personal use.
- Convenience Goods: Frequently bought, immediately, with minimal effort (e.g., toothpaste, candy).
- Shopping Goods: Less frequently purchased, requiring careful comparison of suitability, quality, price and style (e.g., furniture, clothes).
- Specialty Goods: Unique characteristics – consumers will go out of their way to purchase (e.g., luxury cars, designer clothes).
- Unsought Goods: Consumers don't know about or do not initially want them (e.g, insurance, burial plans).

This section details marketing strategies dependent upon product type (convenience, shopping, specialty, unsought). This includes considerations on product, price, place, and promotion.

Product Attributes are the characteristics that define a product or service that delivers a benefit. Examples of measurable product benefits include quality, features, and design.
Product Quality: Two-dimensions to consider for level of quality. One is the target level the product needs to support market position, the second is the quality consistency in performance.
Design: It's a bigger concept than just style. Style describes appearance; design encompasses usefulness and functionality alongside aesthetics.
Branding: A name, symbol, term, sign, or combination uniquely identifying a seller's product or service.
Packaging: The container or wrapper for a product. Includes brand name, instructions, ingredients, and other product details.
Labeling: Physical tags or graphics on the package that perform various functions, like identifying a brand, explaining products, describing features, and promoting products.