This document defines key concepts around products, services, and branding strategies. It discusses that products can include tangible goods as well as services, experiences, organizations and ideas. Services are intangible activities or benefits offered for sale. Products and services can be classified as consumer, industrial, or unsought. Branding strategies aim to build strong brands by differentiating products from competitors through names, packaging, labeling and quality. Product lines and mixes are determined based on relatedness, width, depth, length and consistency.

1. CHAPTER 9
Products, Services and Branding Strategies

2. PRODUCT
 anything that can be offered to a market for attention,
acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or
need.
 includes more than tangible goods
products include physical objects, services, events,
persons, places, organizations, ideas

3. SERVICES
 any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another
that is essentially intangible and does not result in the
ownership of anything
 form of product that consists of activities, benefits or
satisfactions offered for sale
 ex.: banking, hotel, airline, retail, tax preparation

4. PRODUCTS, SERVICES &
EXPERIENCES
 product is a key element in market offering
 a company’s market offering often includes both tangible
goods and services
 pure tangible good – soap, toothpaste or salt
 pure services – for which the offer consists primarily of a
service (ex.: doctor’s exam or financial services)

5. LEVELS OF PRODUCT
&SERVICES
 1st/basic level: core benefit – ‘what is the buyer really buying?’
 when designing products, marketers must first define the core,
problem-solving benefits or services that consumers seek.
 2nd level – product planners must turn the core benefit into an
actual product
they need to develop product and services features and designs

6.  3rd level - product planners must build an augmented
product around the core benefit and actual product by
offering additional consumer services and benefits

7. THREE LEVELS OF
PRODUCT
 core benefit
 actual product – brand name, quality level, packaging,
design & features
 augmented product – delivery and credit, installation,
warranty & after-sale services

8. PRODUCT & SERVICE
CLASSIFICATION
 consumer products – product brought by final
consumer for personal consumption
 convenience product – consumer product that the
customer usually buys frequently, immediately and with a
minimum of comparison and buying effort

9.  shopping product– consumer good that the customer,
in the process of selection and purchase, characteristically
compares on such bases as suitability, quality, price and style
 specialty product – consumer product with unique
characteristics or brand identification for which a significant
group of byers is willing to make a special purchase effort

10.  unsought product– consumer product that the
consumer either does not know about or knows abut but
does not normally think of buying

11. INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS
 product bought by individuals and organizations for
further processing or for use in conducting a business
 has three groups

12. 3 GROUPS OF INDUSTRIAL
PRODUCTS
 materials & parts – includes raw materials and manufactured
items.
 capital items – industrial products that aid in the buyer’s
production or operations
 supplies & services – supplies include operating supplies and
repair items; services include maintenance and repair services

13. ORGANIZATIONS,
PERSONS, PLACES & IDEAS
 organization marketing – activities undertaken to create, maintain
or change the attitudes of target consumers
 corporate image advertising – major tool companies use to market
themselves to various publics
 person marketing – consists of activities undertaken to create,
maintain or change attitudes towards particular people
 place marketing – activities undertaken to create, maintain or
change attitudes towards particular places

14. SOCIAL MARKETING
 the design, implementation and control of programs
seeking to increase the acceptability of a social idea, cause
or practice among a target group
 includes campaigns to promote a clean environment,
energy conservation and family planning

15. PRODUCT & SERVICE
DECISION
three levels: individual product decision, product line decision & product mix decision

16. INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT &
SERVICE DECISION
 developing a product or service involves defining the
benefits that it will offer.
 these benefits are communicated and delivered by
product attributes such as quality, features and style and
design.

17. PRODUCT QUALITY
 ability of a product to perform its functions; it includes
the product’s overall durability, reliability, precision, case of
operation and repair
 one of the marketer’s major positioning tools

18. PRODUCT QUALITY
 total quality management – an approach in which all
employees are involved in constantly improving the quality
of products, services & business process
 two dimensions of product quality:
~ performance quality – ability to perform its function
~ conformance quality – freedom from defects

19. BRAND
 a name, term, sign, symbol or design intended to identify
the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to
differentiate them from those of competitors

20. PACKAGING
 the activities of designing and producing the container or
wrapper for a product
 includes a product’s primary container

21. LABELING
 labels may range from simple tags attached to products
to complex graphics that are part of the package
 identifies the product or brand
 describes several things about the product

22. PRODUCT LINE
 group of products 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
 company can lengthen its product line in two ways: line
stretching or line filing

23. PRODUCT LINE
STRETCHING
 occurs when a company lengthen its product line beyond
its current range
 the company can stretch its line downward, upward or
both ways

24. PRODUCT LINE FILLING
 adding more items within the present range of the line
 reasons for product line filling: reaching for extra profits,
satisfying dealers, using excess capacity, being the leading
full-line company and plugging holes to keep out
competitors

25. PRODUCT MIX / PRODUCT
ASSORTMENT
 set of all product lines and items that a particular seller
offers for sale
 a company’s product mix has four important dimension:
width, length, depth and consistency

26.  width – number of different product lines the company
carries
 depth – number of versions offered of each product in the
line
 length – total number of items the company carries within its
product line
 consistency – how closely related the various product lines
are in end us, production requirements and distribution channels

27. BRANDING STRATEGY
Building strong brands