PRODUCT MIX -Marketing

Product, the first of the four Ps of marketing mix has a unique positions as it constitutes the most substantive element in any marketing offer. The other elements – price, place and promotion – are normally employed to make the product offering unique and distinct. Product is, thus, the number one weapon in the marketer’s arsenal.

Product is complex concept which has to be carefully defined. In common parlance, any tangible items such as textiles, books, television and many others are called as products. But an individual’s decision to buy an item is based on not only on its tangible attributes but also on a variety of associated non-tangible and psychological attributes such as services, brand, package, warranty, image etc. Therefore, to crystallize the understanding of the term ‘product’, it would be appropriate to take recourse to different definitions of ‘product’ given by marketing practioners.

According to Alderson, “Product is a bundle of utilities consisting of various product features and accompanying service”. The bundle of utilities is composed of those physical and psychological attributes that the buyer receiver when the buys the product and which the marketer provides a particular combination of product features and associated services.

According to Schwarz, “a product is something a firm markets that will satisfy a personal want or fill a business need”, and includes “all the peripheral factors that may include reputation of the manufacturer, the warranty, credit and delivery terms, the brand name and the courtesy shown by the sales and service personnel.”

Philip Kotler defines product ‘as anything that can be offered to a marketer for attention, acquisition, use of consumption that might satisfy a want or need. It includes physical object, services persons, places organizations and ideas.

The perusal of above definitions it is revealed that a product is not only an tangible entity, but also the intangible services such as prestige, image etc. form an integral part of the product.

Precisely, the answers to the following questions the product policy of a firm:

Ø What products should the company make?

Ø Where exactly are these products to be offered?

Ø To which market or market segment?

Ø What should be the relationship among the various members of a product line?

Ø What should be the width of the product mix?

Ø How many different product lines can the company accommodate?

Ø How should the products be positioned in the market?

Ø What should be the brand policy?

Ø Should there be individual brands, family brands and/or multiple brands?

A product policy serves the following three main functions:

1. A product policy guides and directs the activities of whole organisation toward a single goal. Only rarely, product decisions are made solely by top executives. More often such decisions require the specialized knowledge of experts in many fields – research, development, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, law, finance and even personnel.

2. A product policy helps to provide the information required for decisions on the product line.

3. A product policy gives executives a supplementary check on the usual estimates of profit and loss.

A sound product policy is thus an important tool for coordination and directions. It applies not only to those major decisions which are ultimate responsibility of general managers also to the many lower level employees who also take day to day decisions.