Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic

Marketing: A

Global−Managerial

Approach, 14/e

9. Elements of Product
   Planning for Goods and
   Services

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

250 Chapter 9

Among different types of jeans, the one with the strongest stitching and the most

comfortable or durable fabric might be thought of as having the highest grade or

relative qualityfor its product type. Marketing managers often focus on relative qual-

ity when comparing their products to competitors’ offerings. However, a product

with better features is not a high-quality product if the features aren’t what the

target market wants.

Quality and satisfaction depend on the total product offering. If potato chips get

stale on the shelf because of poor packaging, the consumer will be dissatisfied. A

broken button on a shirt will disappoint the customer—even if the laundry did a

nice job cleaning and pressing the collar. A full-featured TiVo digital video recorder

is a poor-quality product if it’s hard for a consumer to program a recording session.^2

You already know that a product may be a physical goodor a serviceor a blendof

both. Yet, it’s too easy to slip into a limited, physical-product point of view. We

want to think of a product in terms of the needs it satisfies. If a firm’s objective is

to satisfy customer needs, service can be part of its product—or service alone may

bethe product—and must be provided as part of a total marketing mix.

Exhibit 9-2 shows this bigger view of Product. It shows that a product can

range from a 100 percent emphasis on physical goods—for commodities like steel

pipe—to a 100 percent emphasis on service, like dial-up Internet access from

EarthLink. Regardless of the emphasis involved, the marketing manager must

Goods and/or services
are the product

100%

0%

0% Service 100%

emphasis

Physical

good

emphasis

Canned soup, steel pipe,

paper towels

Restaurant meal, cell phone,

automobile tune-up

Internet service provider,

hair styling, postal ser vice

Exhibit 9-2
Examples of Possible Blends
of Physical Goods and
Services in a Product

Because customers buy
satisfaction, not just parts,
marketing managers must be
constantly concerned with the
product quality of their goods
and services.