PRODUCT

Product Anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or a need – physical goods, services, experiences,
events, persons, places, properties, ideas, organizations
Product levels
(i) Core benefit – Fundamental service the customer is buying
(ii) Basic Product – Marketer turns core benefit into a basic product
(iii) Expected product – Set of attributes and conditions a buyer expects when he buys a product
(iv) Augmented product – Exceeds customer expectations
(v) Potential product – Encompasses all possible augmentations and transformations the product
may undergo in the future
Eg. IT Service : Basic product – Software; Exp. Product – Service;
Augmented prod – SLAs, maintenance service, quality;
Potential Product – move up the value chain into consulting
Product Classification
Consumer Goods

Convenience Shopping Unsought Specialty

Staples Impulse Emergency Homogenous heterogenous

Product Mix Set of products and items that a seller offers for sale.
Width Number of different product lines offered
Length Total number of items in the mix
Depth Number of variations of each product in the line
Consistency How closely related the product lines are in end use, production requirements,
distribution channels etc
Product line decisions
(i) Product-line analysis – To decide which products in a line to build, maintain, harvest or divest.
Decisions are taken on the basis of Sales and Profits(categorise based on margins and volumes),
and the Market Profile (product mapping to identify untapped niches).
(ii) Product-line length
Upselling – Maruti Zen to Esteem to Baleno
Downselling -
Cross-selling – Banks offer services like savings, insurance, tax planning, fixed deposits Line
Stretch
Downmarket stretch – Parker pens flooded market with low-priced pens
IT companies going for BPO
Bajaj Boxer that was launched as a flanker brand
Upmarket stretch – Hyundai Sonata; Maruti Baleno
IT companies moving into consulting
Two-way stretch – Marriot hotels; Infosys and CTS offer BPO and consulting

Line Filling – Adding more items within the present range. Beware of cannibalization and
customer confusion. Just-noticeable difference needed. Eg. HLL soaps; ITC cigarettes
(iii) Line modernization, featuring and pruning

BRANDING

Brand name, term, sign, symbol, design or a combination of them to identify goods or servies of a seller and differentiate
from competitor
Meanings conveyed Attributes, Benefits, Values, Culture, Personality, User Beliefs
Research approaches to understand brand meaning Values
- word associations
- personifying the brand Benefits
- laddering up to find the brand essence

Attributes
Brand identity Not built by advertising but by the brand experience
Brand Marketer’s promise to deliver a specific set of features, benefits and services consistently
Brand Hierarchy
Unknown - Brand Awareness - Brand Acceptability - Brand preference - Brand Loyalty
Brand Equity Positive differential effect that knowing the brand name has on customer response
Extent to which customers are willing to pay more for the particular brand

Cult Brand Apple, Goldflake smokers in Calcutta, Matrix

Brand name decisions
(i) Individual Names – Company does not tie its reputation to the product
HLL – Surf, Brooke Bond, Lux, Ponds
P&G – Ariel, Pringles, Pantene
(ii) Blanket family name – Strong positive association
Toshiba, Virgin, Reliance, Tata
(iii) Separate family names – Used when the company is in very diversified product lines
ITC – Will Lifestyle- Sheraton – Sundrop Oil – Kitchens of India
RPG Group – Music World-Food World – Giant
(iv) Corporate name + individual name – Maruti, Nokia

Brand building tools

Public relations, sponsorships, clubs and consumer communities, factory visits, trade shows, social cause marketing, event
marketing, celebrity personality, high value for money etc

Brand Strategy decision Functional brand

Image brand – Marlboro man, Mont Blanc pen
Experiential brand – Eg. Disneyland, California winery

Line Extension Bajaj – Pulsar, Boxer, Chetak; Kelloggs cereals

Higher chance of survival than brand extension

Brand Extension Beware of brand dilution

Reliance – telephone, textile, oil
Multi-brand Extension Protect its share and get more shelf space by setting up flanker brands
HLL – Hamam, Lifebuoy, Lux
Toyota – Lexus; Honda – Accura; Matsushita – National, Panasonic
Co-branding MTV-Citibank cards; Allianz-Bajaj; Jet Airways-Citibank card

Top 5 brands in India

ORGMARG conducted The Economic Times Survey of India’s Most Trusted brands :
Lux
Colgate
Rin
Thums-Up
Dettol
Fair&Lovely

4 out of top 10 are HLL brands

Top 5 brands in the world

Businessweek’s top 100 global brands – August 2003
Criteria for selection : global in nature, deriving 20% or more of sales from outside their home country

Coca-Cola
Microsoft
IBM
GE
Intel
Nokia
Disney
McDonalds
Marlboro
Mercedes