Product Details in Marketing and Branding

Components of Product:

Customers will choose a product based on their perceived value of it. Satisfaction is the degree to which the actual use of a product matches the perceived value at the time of the purchase. A customer is satisfied only if the actual value is the same or exceeds the perceived value. Kotler defined five levels to a product:

1. Core Benefit

the fundamental need or want that consumers satisfy by consuming the product or service.

2. Generic Product

a version of the product containing only those attributes or characteristics absolutely necessary for it to function.

3. Expected Product

the set of attributes or characteristics that buyers normally expect and agree to when they purchase a product.

4. Augmented Product

inclusion of additional features, benefits, attributes or related services that serve to differentiate the product from its competitors.

5. Potential Product

all the augmentations and transformations a product might undergo in the future.

Kotler noted that much competition takes place at the Augmented Product level rather than at the Core Benefit level or, as Levitt put it: 'New competition is not between what companies produce in their factories, but between what they add to their factory output in the form of packaging, services, advertising, customer advice, financing, delivery arrangements, warehousing, and other things that people value.'

Kotler's model provides a tool to assess how the organisation and their customers view their relationship and which aspects create value.

Product Mix:

Product mix length refers to the total number of items the company carries within its product lines. Procter & Gamble typically carries many brands within each line. For example, it sells eleven laundry detergents, eight hand soaps, six shampoos, and four dishwashing detergents.

Product line depth refers to the number of versions offered of each product in the line. Thus, Procter & Gamble’s Crest toothpaste comes in three sizes and two formulations (paste and gel). Finally, the consistency of the product mix refers to how closely related the various product lines are in end use, production requirements, distribution channels, or some other way. Procter & Gamble’s product lines are consistent insofar as they are consumer products that go through the same distribution channels. The lines are less consistent insofar as they perform different functions for buyers.

Product Line:

Product lining is the marketing strategy of offering for sale several related products. Unlike product bundling, where several products are combined into one, lining involves offering several related products individually. A line can comprise related products of various sizes, types, colors, qualities, or prices. Line depth refers to the number of product variants in a line. Line consistency refers to how closely related the products that make up the line are. Line vulnerability refers to the percentage of sales or profits that are derived from only a few products in the line.

The number of different product lines sold by a company is referred to as width of product mix. The total number of products sold in all lines is referred to as length of product mix. If a line of products is sold with the same brand name, this is referred to as family branding. When you add a new product to a line, it is referred to as a line extension. When you add a line extension that is of better quality than the other products in the line, this is referred to as trading up or brand leveraging. When you add a line extension that is of lower quality than the other products of the line, this is referred to as trading down. When you trade down, you will likely reduce your brand equity. You are gaining short-term sales at the expense of long term sales.

Image anchors are highly promoted products within a line that define the image of the whole line. Image anchors are usually from the higher end of the line's range. When you add a new product within the current range of an incomplete line, this is referred to as line filling.

Price lining is the use of a limited number of prices for all your product offerings. This is a tradition started in the old five and dime stores in which everything cost either 5 or 10 cents. Its underlying rationale is that these amounts are seen as suitable price points for a whole range of products by prospective customers. It has the advantage of ease of administering, but the disadvantage of inflexibility, particularly in times of inflation or unstable prices.

There are many important decisions about product and service development and marketing. In the process of product development and marketing we should focus on strategic decisions about product attributes, product branding, product packaging, product labeling andproduct support services. But product strategy also calls for building a product line.

 Product Hierarchy: 

Example:

Product Family:
Group of products manufactured by a firm that are closely related in use and in production and marketing requirements. The depth of the product line refers to the number of different products offered in a product line. For example, General Foods has about a dozen different products in its coffee product line. Each of these items is promoted as distinctive, although they share the same distribution channels and similar manufacturing facilities. McDonald's has developed a food product line that includes several hamburger, fish, and chicken sandwiches. A product line may be targeted to a
particular customer group, such as Skill home shop tools, or sold to various customer types through the same outlets, such as Ace Hardware Stores.

A product line is too short if profits can be increased by adding items; the line is

too long if profits can be increased by dropping items.

Line pruning - There is a tendency for product lines to lengthen over time. Hence a review must be carried out regularly.

Line modernization – Modernizing all products in the line

Line featuring – Selecting a few items from the line and promoting them aggressively to attract attention to the total line

BRANDING

Brand is a powerful differentiator in a competitive market place. A brand represents values (trust, confidence, comfort and reliability) in a customer’s mind. Some brand-related questions likely to be faced by an educational institution:

• Should we develop a brand for our institution individually or should we join hands with our institutions of the region and promote a common brand? (IITs have realized that IIT as a brand is the common property of all IITs and they must project it globally)

• Does it make more sense to have a brand for the institution as a whole or is it preferable to have a separate brand for each product offering? (NIIT tried to develop separate brands like GNIIT but has realized that developing NIIT as one brand is the better course)

• What core values does our brand suggest? Do these match with the overall offerings made by the institution? Is there a mismatch between the offerings and the brand image? What can be done to correct the mismatch? (MANIT, Bhopal recently got the status of NIT and shed its earlier name of MACT. MANIT is regularly in news in local press due to the hooliganism of its students. This has meant that MANIT’s brand image is very poor through it has been awarded such a high status by the Government.)

Some examples of brand issues in education:

! Recently, the name of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Gwalior was changed to Atalbihari Vajpayee Institute of Information Technology. Students of the institute protested strongly against the name change. In fact, all the students had to be almost confined to police custody at the naming ceremony, where Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi

was the Chief Guest, to prevent disturbances.

! It has been more than a decade since the name of Bhopal University was changed to Barkatullah University, after a relatively unknown pre-independence communist leader. The new name led to loss of brand image for the university. In the past decade some of the most prestigious institutes under the fold of the university have given up affiliations

with the university. TTTI Bhopal is currently affiliated with Barkatullah University, but hopes to get out of the fold soon.

! University of Roorkee was recently awarded the status of IIT – a typical example of brand extension. Fears have been expressed about dilution of brand equity of IITs by such brand extensions. There has been some talk of IITs stopping their B. Tech. programmes and having only five year M. Tech. programmes. Loudest protests have come from IIT alumni with B. Tech. who believe that IIT B. Tech. has a brand goodwill that is not matched by M. Tech. and a discontinuation of B. Tech. programme will lead to erosion of the goodwill.

Brand Equity – “set of assets and liabilities linked to a brand”; In other words, brand equity provides (or negatively subtracts) value to an organization in the form of price premium, trade leverage or competitive advantage.

Managing Brand Equity – Maintain and improve

a) Brand awareness

b) Perceived quality and functionality

c) Positive associations