Sunday, October 25, 2015

New Products & Services!!

Hello Guys! In our last blog we discussed the purchasing decision process. Now we are going to discuss the products and services that companies create to convince us to buy. First, let’s talk about the categories of things that companies try to sell to consumers. The larger, overarching topic is a product which is a good, service or idea that can have intangible or tangible aspects as a means of satisfying the consumer’s needs. Within that, a good is a tangible item that can appease some or all of the five senses (Kerin, Hartley, Rudelius, p. 248, 2015). For instance, a smartphone is identified as a good because it is tangible and the consumer can feel it, see it and hear it. A service on the other hand is an intangible item that satisfies consumer’s needs via the exchange of money from the consumer.
Now that we have the basis out of the way we can look more at the thought process a company goes through before introducing a new product. It’s easiest for companies to products that are under the category of continuous innovation. These products do not require much work done but us the consumers, which is nice as it makes it easier for us to decide to purchase the product. An example of this would be the release of the new IPhone 6S, although it is new it is a continuous product as it does not require much change in the consumer’s behavior when using the product.



The next category of products are dynamically continuous innovative products. These products, although new to consumers, the company does not have to provide too much information to use the products. An example of this that we discussed in class was the new Keurig line collaboration with Campbell’s Soup. The Keurig machine would still be the same but consumers would have to add a step to gain a nice mug of soup. The idea is to empty a packet of noodles into a mug and select a broth to brew. After a few minutes, you would have a mug of warm, Campbell’s Soup. Interesting right!


 A category of products that may be more difficult to introduce would be a discontinuous product, this is because it requires new learning by the consumer. This creates another step for the consumer before they can have their needs satisfied. An example of a discontinuous innovative product would be an electric car; although the consumers using it would have knowledge of how to use a car they would have to learn how to charge it. They would also have to change their whole driving process, as the charge only last a certain amount of miles and the consumer will have to make sure they a prepared if they need to travel further than the allotted time.


With all of this information, there is so much that a company must go through before deciding if they want to add a new product to their brand. There is a seven stop process that the image above depicts. Companies go through this process as a means to prevent products from failing which we all know is important to increase the bottom line. It involves a lot of work from gathering ideas from internal/external sources to conducting survey’s or focus groups to see if consumers would like the product. Alright guys, hopefully you guys have some idea about the different types of products in the industry. See you all soon!

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