Meaning and Importance of Products, Principles of Marketing Video Lecture | Principles of Marketing - B Com

you
when deciding on which different
elements a product or service should
include marketers often talk about
defining developing managing or
replacing products however before we
start talking about products let us just
list the learning goals for this video
the goal is to establish an
understanding of what defining a product
means why we need to know about it and
how we could go about doing it we will
also look at the connection with the
rest of the marketing mix secondly we
will provide an overview of some
additional tools and theories we as
marketers can use when defining
developing managing or replacing
products or services so let us begin
what is the meaning of defining a
product and what is the connection to
the rest of the marketing mix when you
are asked to design the marketing mix
you need to make decisions on four or
seven four elements also known as the
four or the 7ps first of all issues
concerning the product which is what
this video will address secondly a
decision on price thirdly you will need
to decide on the place through which
channels will you distribute the product
or service we also need to make a plan
of which promotional activities will
carry out in order to tell our time
about our product and encourage them to
buy if we're dealing with an offering
that is better described as a service or
perhaps a product that includes large
elements of service we might also want
to look at the additional three P's the
people that are involved in delivering
the service the process that our
customers will go through in order to
receive our service and the physical
evidence any visible or tangible
elements that the customer will see here
by other ways experienced when receiving
the service
none of the four the seven P's should be
decided on an isolation however product
is the P which we will focus on in this
video
so what does it mean to define a product
to define a product means to make some
decisions on what exactly to offer the
customer and why as marketers we need to
know how to do this in order to fulfill
our target groups needs wants and
desires and to do this better than the
competition in other words we are
looking to differentiate our product
offering now let's look at how we could
go about doing this here we will use a
few simple tools and we will divide our
process into three simple steps let us
use this cafe as an example it is called
the French cafe and it has recently
opened up in town it specializes in
French cakes and desserts step number
one briefly describe their primary
target business women who out shopping
with their girlfriends they value
quality / price they eat out often they
lead busy lives they value spending time
together and they are quite image
conscious this knowledge is important to
us when deciding for what the café's
product offering should include so when
defining the product firstly we need to
choose investigate and understand our
target group so that we can define a
product that fulfills the needs wants
and desires of our chosen target
secondly we should look at how we can
augment the product to augment means to
make greater by adding something this is
how we'd fulfill our time groups needs
and desires differentiate our product
from the competitors and subsequently
build our product or business brand
theory tells us that we can look at six
different areas of augmenting products
let us go through them using our example
with the French cafe firstly quality and
design we will look for clues in our
target group description knowing that
our target wood venues quality of a
price we would decide that we will use
high quality ingredients in our cakes
and desserts and that we should hire a
trained confectioner to ensure the
French look of the cakes secondly
packaging looking at the target group
description we might for the same
reasons as before decide that we will
serve the cakes and de search using
romantic French looking plates cutlery
and high quality napkins
thirdly service knowing that our type of
group has most likely been on their feet
all day we will add to the French cafe
experience by providing a high level of
service in the cafe trained waiters will
show the customers to their tables where
they will take their orders serve them
and handle the payment delivery we could
consider offering a home delivery of
cakes and desserts this might make us
stand out from the competitors but since
our type of group is more likely to eat
out we will exclude this idea for now
and not included in our product offering
brand name an image in time our branding
the French cafe will also add to the
perceived value of our cakes of desserts
and therefore our decide brand image and
this will of course appeal to our target
group desire of maintaining their own
image however this will not happen
instantly this is something that will
develop over time
providing guarantees is another way of
augmenting a product but maybe we would
find that more relevant with other types
of products for example offering a
three-year guarantee with the purchase
of a new washing machine not so relevant
with cakes and desserts and there are no
indications of the need for guarantees
from our target group description so we
will not provide guarantees in our
product offering on the basis of our
knowledge about the target group we have
now defined how we will augment the
product the cakes and desserts we
decided on a high level of quality
designer packaging we decided on a high
level of service we decided not to other
whole deliveries or guarantees and we
determined that the brand name and image
will in time provide added value to our
augmented product this way we can give
the owner of the French chef a specific
details of how to meet the desired tile
groups needs and desires by defining
exactly what to include in the product
offering so moving on to step number
three in order to set ourselves up for
how to communicate the Augmented product
to our target group we need to get past
the technicalities of the product
details and features it is safe to say
that the majority of customers will
choose a product not based on the
specifications themselves but rather
based on the advantages and benefits
those features bring them listing the
benefits of our products therefore
summarize our product offering in the
sense of how to communicate our product
when we later design our promotional
activities let us look at some of the
features in our product offering the
high quality ingredients of our cakes is
a feature so features are facts or
specifications they are not so
motivating in themselves
however we can translate this feature
into an advantage of a better tasting
and better looking cake advantages are
then the effects of the feature and they
are somewhat more motivating than the
feature itself furthermore this
advantage gives our time group the
benefit of a highly enjoyable experience
but allows them to preserve their
all-important self-image
so benefits are the values that this
feature brings the customer and this is
highly motivating to the customer
another feature is our added service of
a waiter the advantage for our target
group is that they don't have to self
serve the benefit is that they can
concentrate on spending time together
enjoy a nice treat and a relaxing break
from their busy day being serviced adds
to the perceived value of our product
offering especially for our target group
so benefits are what gives the customer
value and therefore they are often
described in terms of economy time
comfort or values in our example comfort
and values are the benefits these values
and benefits should be communicated to
the target group in our mix of
promotional activities we could prepare
many more benefits of communication so
pause the video for a minute and see if
you can identify some additional
features and translate them into
advantages and most importantly benefits
for our chosen target group so to sum up
we should choose investigate and
understand our target group we should
define how we will augment the planet
and we should understand the benefits
that our product gives the target group
we have now established an understanding
of what defining a product means why we
need to know about it and how we can go
about doing it
so let's move on in addition to the
factors we have just discussed we as
marketers have many additional tools and
theories we can use to guide us when
defining developing managing or
replacing a product or service these
will not be described at detail in this
video but let us just produce an
overview of some of the tools and
theories we might want to use we can
look at where in the product life cycle
our product is and which strategic
marketing objectives we have we can
investigate brand equity and use other
branding tools if we're dealing with a
line of products we could benefit from
using Boston or GE bubble when
considering how to facilitate growth we
can use and source product both matrix
when talking about replacing existing
products we would benefit from looking
at some different product placement
strategies and finally if we're
developing introducing a new product and
innovation we should look at how some
different characteristics of our
innovation will affect how quickly we
can expect to be adopted by the market
we have now established an understanding
of what why and how to define a product
and lastly we have presented an overview
of some additional tools and theories
available to us when defining developing
managing or replacing products to learn
more about how to use the different
tools and theories introduced in this
video I recommend that you read chapters
9 11 and 12 in David Java and Fiona in
his Chadwicks principle and practice of
marketing seventh edition my name is
Tina Wade thank you for watching
you