MKTG101 Topic 2: The Total Product (Weeks
3-4)
The Marketing Offering
Most ‘Market Offerings’ are a mixture of goods and service:
The Substance (core product, physical; Product Management)
The Service (Interactive Marketing)
The Symbol (Brand Marketing, External Marketing)
A consumer’s idea of the brand (positioning) can influence whether they buy from them
Interactive marketing, product management and brand marketing work together to create the
total product
Price is the money charged for the total product / the sum of values that consumers exchange
for the benefits of having or using the total product
Marketers must ensure the substance, service, and symbol stack up to outweigh the price
Branding driven by quality of products,service
Most firms offer customers a package of benefits:
Core product (a good or a service)
Supplementary services that add value to the core (opportunities for differentiation, competitive
advantage)
Marketing Paradigms
Transactional Marketing = focussed only on ‘winning’ customers
Relationship Marketing = focussed on ‘keeping’ customers
The Substance
Core product can be tangible or intangible
Difficult to market something you can’t touch e.g., bank account
Durable goods = tangible goods that survive many uses e.g., refrigerators, machine tools,
and clothing
Require more personal selling and service, command a higher margin, and more seller guarantees
Nondurable goods = tangible goods consumed in one or a few uses e.g., beer and shampoo.
Goods are purchased frequently
Appropriate strategy
be available in many locations
a small mark-up
advertise heavily to induce trial and build preference
Five product Levels
Consumer Goods Classification
, Convenience = purchased frequently, immediately and with minimum effort (e.g., drinks,
soap, newspapers)
Staples = on a regular basis
Impulse = without plan or research
Emergency = urgent need
Specialty = Unique characteristics or brand identification for which buyers make a special
purchasing effort; don’t need convenient location or comparisons (e.g., car, suit, video
machine)
Unsought = goods that consumer doesn’t normally think of buying; they require advertising
and personal-selling support (e.g., smoke detectors, life insurance, cemetery plots)
Shopping = goods that consumer compares on such bases as suitability, quality, price, and
style (e.g., furniture, clothes)
Homogeneous = similar in quality but different enough in price
Heterogeneous = differ in product features and services than may be more important that
price
Industrial Goods Classification
Material and parts = enter the manufacturer’s product completely
Raw materials
Farm products = supplied by many producers, little advertising (e.g., wheat, cotton, livestock, fruits)
Natural products = limited supply (e.g., fish, crude petroleum, iron ore)
Manufactured materials and part
Component materials = usually fabricated further (e.g., iron, cement, wires)
Component parts = no further change in form (e.g., small motors, tires)
Capital items = long lasting goods
Installations = bought directly from the producer, personal selling (e.g., buildings, heavy equipment)
Equipment = shorter life, sold by intermediaries mainly (e.g., tools, office equipment)
Supplies = short term goods that facilitate developing or managing the finished product
Maintenance and repair items (e.g., paint, nails, brooms)
Operating supplies (e.g., lubricants, coal, pencils, paper)
Business services = short term services that facilitate developing or managing the finished product
Maintenance and repair services (e.g., window cleaning, copier repair)
Business advisory services (e.g., legal, advertising consulting)
Kinds of Products
Individual Product (We focus on quality, features, style, design, warranty etc.)
Product Line (A group of products that are closely related because they may:
Function in a similar manner
Be sold to the same customer groups
Be marketed through the same types of outlets
Fall within given price ranges
Product line length
Product line length = how many product varieties the firm offers
Line stretching is adding products that are higher / lower priced than the existing line
Downward stretch is introducing lower quality products
Upward stretch is introducing high quality products
A two-way stretch involves both
Line filling is adding more items within the price range
Product Range (known as product assortment)
Consists of all the product lines and items that a particular seller offers for sale
Product Mix
Product Mix is the number of different products carried by the company
Depth is the number of different versions of each product in the line
