Posted: November 22nd, 2015

Principles of Marketing by Phil Kotler and Gary Armstrong. as a reference also outside information on samsung cell phones may be used as well. please use in text citations when necessary.

 

• Your job in Writing Assignment 5 and beyond is to develop marketing mix strategies to ensure a value offering for the target market you identified in Week 4. We begin with the value offering this week.
• Again please note we don’t expect you to develop strategies based on a total knowledge of the product or service since you are not, or most likely not, employed by your product or service’s company.  We will be looking to see if you can apply the marketing concepts to the real world situation.
• Again, do not fall into the trap of reporting on the product or service.  This is obvious because your assignment will look like a rewrite of the company’s website.  Don’t be afraid to make strategy recommendations based on what you have discovered about the product or service, and how you think it can move forward.  Be creative, be reasoned, take risks.
• Remember your product’s target market from last week.  Always keep them in mind when making your recommendations.  You now work for the company and your goal it to help them grow sales.
• Prepare your assignment beginning with a title page including your name, your product or service, and the name of your target market.  The answer each of the following four questions in order and number the beginning of each question.  There is no need to repeat the question text.

 

1. Offering.  Describe your product or service offering as it is currently n terms of features and benefits, price and the total cost of ownership as discussed in the week’s readings.  Is it more product dominant or service dominant.  What are the tangible and intangible aspects?

 

For the first question, be sure to address each item in the question:

• most important features
• benefits the customer receives from each of the features you list.  Say”feature” and say “benefit”.  You can do features and benefits in one sentence – just be sure it is clear that you understand the difference between the two.
• Quote the average price, or price range for your product.  Don’t talk about price – just say what it is.
• Be sure to include the total cost of ownership.  See course concepts, but, basically, this means, what else does the customer need to buy, now and in the future because of owning this product?  Use your terms – total cost of ownership (TCO).
• Include the personal value equation from week 1:  value=benefits received-(price+hassle). You can use this as a one sentence summing up of the previous 4 bullet points.  You can use an attachment, instead, to show the equation and your detail. That can save you some space in your two-page narrative.

Answer the questions about product versus service dominance and tangible versus intangible together.  Be sure to use these terms in your answer.  Again, you may use an attachment for your tangible/intangible continuum if this helps you explain your answer.  You need Learning Activity 5.1 and pages 4 and 5 to answer this question.

 

As we have been noting in earlier weeks, “product” is a generic term to mean tangible goods, services, or ideas. Most products are a combination of tangible goods and service and fall somewhere on a continuum like this:

 

Tangible: Salt

Semi Tangible: Cell Phone/Service

Semi Intangible: Gaming  System/Games

Intangible: Haircut

 

Select one of your favorite products and describe it terms of its:

• features
• benefits
• price
• total cost of ownership

 

Be sure you refer to these concepts in the week’s readings before tackling this description. Then, identify where your product would fall on the product/service continuum and why you chose that location. Use percentages such as 25 percent product and 75 percent service. Lastly, does the product have any product lines? If so, how do they differ from the “core product” in terms of additional benefits or features?

 

Required: Discuss your thoughts on this topic in the Week 5 Discussion 4, Topic 1: Product Descriptions. Comment on the posts of other classmates if you are familiar with products they have chosen and what your thoughts are on the description and the continuum choice.

 

Check out this Ad Week article on Coach repositioning its brand in 2013:

 

Coach: We’re a Lifestyle Brand: Not Just Pricey Purses Anymore: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/coach-we-re-lifestyle-brand-152778

 

Why do you think Coach needed to reposition its brand? What new target market is the company seeking? How has it changed the offering?

 

2. Type of consumer offering.  Based on the four categories of type of offerings discussed in course content,  describe in which category your product or service offering belongs.  Based on your new target market, would that category of the offering change and if so, how?  How would it change marketing strategy?

 

There is a marketing principle called Types of consumer Offerings and you can find this on pages 8 – 11 in course content and Learning Activity 5.2.  This question is a mini essay on that marketing principle.  so, use the terms from the course content.  State right out which of the types your product is.  Do not talk about all of the types, just say which one yours is.  Say a few of the characteristics of the type of offering and apply that to your product or product line.  All of this can be done in one sentence.  Next, you are being asked to go back to last week’s paper where you identified or created a target market segment for your product.  Say the name of that target market segment.  If you did  not name it before, name it now.  Say if you would change your offering for this market segment and if so say how you would change it. If not, say no, and say why not.  This can be done in one, maybe two sentences. The question about changing your marketing strategy depends on how you answered the question.  If the type of consumer offering category changes, say how you would now market the product based on the material about marketing strategies for the new type.  You do not have to go into detail about the product change because you get to do that in question 3. If you answered, no, the product would not change for this segment, say what other marketing strategy would change. For example, would you recommend designing communications with a focus on social media because this segment lives on social media and you have not done much to reach them there?  Make it brief. Remember that this is about the principle of type of product so don’t stray from that.

 

This section of the week’s readings describes the types of consumer offerings with four categories:

• convenience offerings
• shopping offerings
• specialty offerings
• unsought offerings

Consider your own purchase behaviors. Identify a product that, for you, falls into each of the four categories. Be sure to consider why you chose each of the categories for each product.

 

3. Product line extensions or new product development. Should the current product or service be modified to more fully meet the needs of your new target market?  Would the changes constitute a new product line, a product line extension or a new product?  If no product changes are needed, how does the same product or service meet the need of your target market differently than current customers?  Would the product line extension or new product allow the offering to occupy uncontested space in the perceptual map for the target market as covered in Week 4?

 

You have already begun this answer when you answered question 2.  Just keep going.  If you answered that the offering would change and you said how it would change, you can fill in more detail here.  The detail should be enough to make it clear that you understand the difference between creating a new product and extending the product line.  Look at pages 5 – 7 in the material and page 18.  Use your terms.  Talk about your perceptual map and say if this new product changes your positioning on the map and how.If you answered no to question 2, you need to explain how your product, as it stands now, meets the needs of your new segment differently than current customers (different uses, different benefits).  If the criteria you used for your map is different for this segment you could talk about that.  If the criteria is the same, you can say that positioning on the perceptual map does not change and say why.  You are demonstrating that you understand that new products or line extensions happen because the marketer is attempting to address unmet needs of a target market that is attractive.

 

4. Product lifecycle. In which stage of the product lifecycle is your product or service offering now?  Would the changes described in number 3 above change the lifecycle stage and if so how?  What would this mean to the lifecycle marketing strategy?

 

We are working on product life cycle in our discussion this week.  The first thing you have to state is what stage in the life cycle is your product and then you need to support your choice with facts that are consistent with the marketing principle of PLC. The best way to do this is with sales data.  Read the topic discussion instructions and all of the posts for best prep on this answer.  the next part of this answer asks you to predict if your new product offering would make a change in the life cycle.  If you did say you would change the offering, then you would probably say that your new offering would move the mature product back into growth or you might say that you are already in growth and this change would help you stay in growth a while longer before leveling off into maturity or something like that.  Please do not say that your new offering will plunge your product into decline.  Look at the various strategies for managing the different life cycle stages.  What strategic moves would you make, now?  What if you did not choose to make an offering change?  Use this question to demonstrate your understanding of the concept and your product’s strategies by discussing their marketing strategies from the perspective of the stage you identified.  Base your discussion on research and observation and be specific.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be sure to follow all of the submission requirements outlined in the syllabus and provided below again for your easy reference:

• Prepare as a word processed document (such as Microsoft Word).
• Your assignment should be the equivalent of two pages of double-spaced text, approximately 1/2 page for each of the four questions.
• Be sure your name, writing assignment number, and the name of your product or service and new target market are on the first page of your writing assignment.
• Use a simple 12-point font such as Times New Roman.  Use black ink for majority of your work and only use colors if it enhances your ability to communicate your thoughts.
• If the writing assignment requires external research, be sure to use footnotes and include a bibliography.   Use APA style.