Friday 15 August 2014

Product
The first component of 4 Ps of marketing is product, which can be understood in two forms:


The literal concept
Product Mix is the full set of products offered for sales by an organization. The product mix includes all product lines and categories, which is the variety of products the company has to offer.
For example: Maggi offers products such as Noodles, Pazzta, Sauces, Soups, and Masala.
The broad dimension
Product Mix can be seen as a constitution of various elements including the conception, production, branding and packaging of the product. Together these elements form a certain product offering. Product mix discusses the range of various such offerings.
The four dimensions to a company's product mix include width, length, depth and consistency.
    Width: The width of a company's product mix pertains to the number of product lines that a company sells. For example, if a company has two product lines, its product mix width is two. Small and upstart businesses will usually not have a wide product mix. It is more practical to start with some basic products and build market share. Later on, a company's technology may allow the company to diversify into other industries and build the width of the product mix. 
The width of the product mix in the case of Maggi incorporated Maggi Sauces, Maggi Soups, Maggi Noodles, Maggi Masalas, and Maggi Pazzta.
   Length: Product mix length pertains to the number of total products or items in a company's product mix, according to Philip Kotler's textbook "Marketing Management". For example, ABC company may have two product lines, and five brands within each product line. Thus, ABC's product mix length would be 10. Companies that have multiple product lines will sometimes keep track of their average length per product line. In the above case, the average length of an ABC Company's product line is five.  
In Maggi Pazzta, the product length is 4, as it is available in four variants; Cheese Macroni, Tomato twist, Masala Penne, and Mushroom Penne.
Depth: Depth of a product mix pertains to the total number of variations for each product. Variations can include size, flavor and any other distinguishing characteristic. For example, if a company sells three sizes and two flavors of toothpaste, that particular brand of toothpaste has a depth of six. Just like length, companies sometimes report the average depth of their product lines; or the depth of a specific product line.
Maggi Pazzta does not have a depth of its own. As the product is available in a uniform weight and size, along with four variants.

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