Product Policy. What is a Product?
Category: Marketing
A tennis racquet, a haircut, a Broadway play, a Hawaiian vacation, and a telephone answering service are all products. We define the word «product» as follows: «A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need.»
Most products are physical products, such as automobiles, toasters, shoes, eggs, and books. But services such as haircuts, concerts, and vacations are also products. Persons can be thought of as products. For example, presidential candidates can be marketed, not in the sense that we «buy» them, but in the sense that we give them attention, vote for them, and support their programme. A place like Hawaii can be marketed, in the sense that we might buy land in Hawaii or go on a vacation there. An organisation like the Red Cross can be marketed, in the sense that we feel positively towards it and support it. Even an idea can be marketed, such as healthy eating or safe driving, in the sense that we might adopt the behaviour associated with these ideas and promote them to others. Thus, broadly defined, products consist of anything that can be marketed, including physical objects, services, persons, places, organisations, and ideas.
Augmented Actual Product Core Product
Three Levels of a Product:
Product planners need to think about the product on three levels. The most basic level is the core product addressing the question: What is the buyer really buying? The core product stands at the centre of the total product. It consists of the problem-solving services or core benefits that consumers obtain when they buy a product.
‘In the factory, we produce cosmetics — in the store, we sell hope ‘Buyers do not buy quarter-inch drills — they buy quarter-inch holes…’
Thus, when designing products, marketers must first define the core of the benefits the product will provide to consumers.
Core Product — what the customer really buys?
The product planner must then build an actual product around the core product. Actual products may have as many as five characteristics: a quality level, features, styling, a brand name, and packaging.
Finally, the product planner must build an augmented product around the core and actual products by offering additional consumer services and benefits. For example, when selling a video recorder, the company must provide consumers with a complete solution to their picture-taking problems: A warranty on parts and workmanship, free lessons on how to use the quick repair services when needed, and a toll-free telephone number to call if they have problems or questions. To the consumer, all these augmentations become an important part of the total product.
Thus, a product is more than a simple set of tangible features. In fact, some products have no tangible features at all. Consumers tend to see products as complex bundles of benefits that satisfy their needs. When developing products, marketers must first identify the core consumer needs the product will satisfy. They must then design the actual product and find ways to augment it in order to create the bundle of benefits that will best satisfy consumers.