Brand Management

• Brand management is a part of marketing that deals with analysis and planning of brand
positioning, target customers, brand perception and brand image. For brand management the
company should maintain a good image among the customers.
• The brand image can be maintained by tangible as well as intangible aspects of the product.
Tangible aspects include the core product, price, packaging, augmented product etc. The
intangible aspects include product positioning, customer experience, value added services,
customer relationship with the brand. Brand manager is responsible for all these.
MODULE I
Product management

Product management can be defined as the general business structure within a company that supports
and manages all the activities related to developing, marketing and selling a product – or even more than
one – all through its lifecycle.

Product:

A product can be defined as anything that we can offer to a market for attention, acquisition, use or
consumption that could satisfy a need or want.

However, the definition of product does not only involve tangible goods such as a car, a fridge or a phone.
The definition of product must be extended to include intangible objects as well, because they can be
offered to a market as well. Therefore, the broad definition of product includes services, events, persons,
places, organisations or even ideas. Thus, the definition of product leads us to a broad range of things: a
car, a phone and a coffee can be a product. But so can a trip to Paris and an advice from your doctor.

According to Philip Kotler “Product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition
use, or consumption and that might satisfy a want or need”.
Product personality

Products carry meanings with them and project distinctive images. These meanings and images arise
out of the many components that make up the product personality.

The components that make up the product personality:

· The core or the basic constituent.

· The associated features.
· The brand name and logo.
· The package and label..

The Core or the Basic Constituent

The core or the basic constituent of the product is the first component in its total personality. Let us
take Mysore Sandal soap, a luxury bath soap made in India as an example. The fragrance of sandal
oil, the oval shape the sandal color, the brand name, the price, the positioning as luxury soap,
everything has gone into the product personality build-up. The core component is the soap, the
generic constituent, as in the case of any other bath soap. Other components are superimposed on
this basic constituent to develop the total personality of Mysore Sandal soap.
Brand name
A brand is defined as a ‘name, term, symbol, design, or a combination of them, which is intended to identify the goods
and services of one seller and to differentiate them from those of competitors.
A trademark is a brand that has been given legal protection, thus ensuring its use exclusively by one seller. Trademark is
a legal term, while brand is a marketing term.

The Package and label

The package is another important component of the total product personality, especially in consumer products. The
package performs two essential roles:
1. Giving protection to the product.
2. Adding to its aesthetics and sales appeal.

The total personality of the product is not decided by these elements alone. They make the initial impact on the
customer. The remaining 3Ps of the marketing mix namely, the Price, Place (channel) and Promotion are crucial elements
deciding the total product personality.
Levels of Product:
A customer not only purchases a product but also various attributes of a product. Specially, packaging,
color, price, quality, brand, etc. So marketer has to take proper planning before introducing product in
the market. Marketer mainly considers three levels of product. These are given below:

Core product: Core product consists of the core problem solving benefit.

Actual product: The actual product exists around the core and includes the quality level, features,
design, brand name and packaging.

Augmented product: The augmented product is the actual product plus the various services and
benefits offered with it.
Product Classification:

A product is anything offered for sale for the purpose of satisfying a want or need on both side of the exchange
process. Products are classified on two types on the basis of customer characteristics.

Consumer product

Industrial product
Consumer Products: Consumer products are products and services bought by final consumers for
personal consumption. Consumer products are mainly use in personal consumption. Various types of
consumer products are given below:

A. Convenience products: Convenience products are consumer’s products and services that
customers usually buy frequently, immediately and with minimum of comparison and buying effort.
There are various types of convenience products are:

Staple products: Staple products are products that are bought often, routinely, and without much
thought. Such as; Rice, Sault, etc.

Impulse products: Impulse products are products that are bought quickly as unplanned purchases
because of a strongly felt need. Such as; Ice-cream, toys, magazines, etc.

Emergency products: Emergency products are products that are purchased immediately when the
need is great. Parts of car, medicine service for emergency patient, raincoat for rainy season, etc.

Home delivery products: These products are mainly delivered to customer’s home.
B. Shopping Products: The products which are purchased by customers on the basis of pre planning is
called shopping product. Shopping products are less frequently purchased consumer products and
services that customers compare carefully on suitability, quality, price and style. Shopping products
are:

Fashion products: Fashion products are shopping goods that are purchased for their appearance,
distinctiveness or style. Such as; garments, gift etc.

Service products: Service goods are durably shopping goods that represent relatively large outlays to
the consumer and that usually require repair or other servicing. Such as; TV, Air conditioner etc.

C. Specialty Products: These products are charming and technology based. These are consumer
products and services with unique characteristics or brand identification for which a significant group
of buyers is willing to make a special purchase effort. Such as; Mercedes Car, High priced watch, etc.

D. Unsought products: These are consumer products that the consumer either does not know about or
know about but does not normally think of buying. Such as; Life insurance policy, grave stone, etc.

Unsought products are:

New unsought products

Regular unsought products
Industrial Products: Industrial products are mainly used for further production. According to Philip
Koter “Industrial products are products bought by individuals and organizations for further processing or
for use in conducting a business”. There are various types of industrial products are given below:

A. Materials and parts: Materials and parts are industrial products that enter the manufacturer’s
product completely. It has two types:-

a). Raw materials

b). Manufactured materials and parts

B. Capital item: Capital items are industrials products that aid in the buyer’s production or operations,
including installations and accessory equipment. It has two types:

a). Accessory equipment

b). Installations
C. Supplies and services: These are industrial products that do not enter the finished product at all.
These are:
a). Supplies
b). Business services
Product mix and Product line:
Product mix

As explained, product mix is a combination of total product lines within a company. A company like
HUL has numerous product lines like Shampoos, detergents, Soaps etc. The combination of all these
product lines is the product mix.

Product line

The product line is a subset of the product mix. The product line generally refers to a type of product
within an organization. As the organization can have a number of different types of products, it will
have similar number of product lines. Thus, in Nestle, there are milk based products like milkmaid,
Food products like Maggi, chocolate products like Kitkat and other such product lines. Thus,
Nestle’s product mix will be a combination of the all the product lines within the company.
Product line length
If a company has 4 product lines, and 10 products within the product line, than the length of the
product mix is 40. Thus, the total number of products against the total number of product lines
forms the length of the product mix. This equation is also known as product line length.

Product line width

The width of the product mix is equal to the number of product lines within a company. Thus,
taking the above example, if there are 4 product lines within the company, and 10 products
within each product line, than the product line width is 4 only. Thus, product line width is a
depiction of the number of product lines which a company has.

Product line depth

It is fairly easy to understand what depth of the product mix will mean. Where length and width
were a function of the number of product lines, the depth of the product mix is the total number
of products within a product line. Thus if a company has 4 product lines and 10 products in each
product line, than the product mix depth is 10. It can have any variations within the product for
form the product line depth.
Product line consistency

The lesser the variations between the products, the more is the product line consistency. For example, Amul has
various product lines which are all dairy related. So that product mix consistency is high. But Samsung as a company
has many product lines which are completely independent of each other. Like Air conditioners, televisions, smart
phones, home appliances, so on and so forth. Thus the product mix consistency is low in Samsung.

Example of Product line and Product mix

Let us take an example of P&G as a company and understand product mix. This will be not be a precise example and
all products of P&G might not be taken into consideration. But the example will help you understand product mix
within an organization.
Detergents – Arial, Arial oxyblue, Ariel bar, Tide, Tide naturals, Tide bleach, Tide plus.
Shampoos – Head and shoulders, Head and shoulders anti dandruff, Pantene, Pantene damage repair, Pantene pro-v
In the above example the following can be learned about the product mix of P&G
Product mix Length – 12
Product mix Width – 2
Product mix Depth – 7 in detergents and 5 in shampoos
Product mix consistency – High as both are bathroom products.
This was the complete explanation on the product mix.
 Module II
Product Development
Factors Affecting Determining Product Design
The factors that determine or affect a product design are as follows:

Requirements of targeted customers.

Availability and access to necessary production facilities.

Type and quality of raw-materials used to produce a product.

Cost to price ratio.

Policy of quality standards.

Availability of plant and machineries.

Impact of upcoming product on existing products of the company.

Reputation or goodwill of the company.

1. Customers’ requirements

The product designers must consider and study the requirements of their targeted customers.
The designed product must satisfy customers in terms of good product requirements like
quality, performance, reliability, durability, etc. The product must create confidence among
customers so that they become loyal to it and start entrusting its company. This will lead to
repeated cycle of sales for the company, thus boosting its profits.

2. Production facilities

The product designers must check that production department has got all necessary facilities to
produce a product. Simple product design requires minimum production facilities. This will
make the job of production department easy, and it will also minimize the cost of production.
The machines and tools which are used to produce the product must give comfort and
convenience to the employees of production department.
3. Raw-materials to be used

The type and quality of the raw-materials to be used, greatly influence the design and making of a
product. The designer must have proper knowledge about latest materials, which are required to
produce the product. He must collect information about required materials from primary and
secondary sources. He must also find out what materials are used by the competitors for their
products.

4. Cost to price ratio

Cost is one of the main factors, which influences the design of a product. Sometimes the product
designer is informed about the maximum cost of the product. So he has to design the product within
this cost. In such a case, he has no freedom to over-design the product. The product designer is also
guided by the cost of competitor's products. It may happen that the designer first designs the product
and then the final price of the product is decided. In this case, the designer gets a freedom to design
the products. However, he must never over design the product.
5. Quality policy

The design of the product is guided by quality policy, which is fixed by the top level of
management. This policy gives, guidelines for quality standard. It sets the design trend for the
future. It also builds a particular quality image of the company's products. Some companies prefer
to have the 'prestige image' for their products. For e.g. Mercedes-Benz, Rolls Royce, Rolex
Watches, etc. Other companies prefer the 'popular image' for their products.

6. Plant and machineries

The product design depends on the availability of plant and machinery. The designer must not
design a product which cannot be manufactured by the machines available in the company. The
machines to be used for production should be of good quality and in a better condition (well
maintained) to meet the needs of the product designers and the quality standards.
7. Effect on existing products

The product designer must consider the impact or effect of the product design on the existing products of
the company. An upcoming new product may badly affect the sale of existing products. The designer
must avoid this situation. For e.g. a company may design a low-quality product, but it may badly affect
the sale of its high quality existing product. Secondly, if a new product is going to replace a former
product, then it must be able to use the same manufacturing and distribution strategies of the existing
product.

8. Reputation of the company

The product designer must consider the reputation of the company in the market. Companies which have
a good name and goodwill in the market will want their new product designs to match or keep up their
positive image.
Changes Affecting Product Management

The Web

Data explosion

Increased emphasis of brands

Changes in the balance of market power

Increased importance of customer retention programs

Increased global competition

Product Development Strategy Definition

Developing new products or modifying existing products so they appear new, and offering those
products to current or new markets is the definition of product development strategy.

several subsets of product development strategy.

Product Development Diversification Strategy

This strategy is employed when a company's existing market is saturated, and revenues and profits
are stagnant or falling. There is little or no opportunity for growth.

product Modification Strategy

Product modification strategies are generally aimed at existing markets, although a side benefit may
be the capturing of new users for the new product

Revolutionary Product Development

Revolutionary products are those for which there was no real prior need. Computers and cell phones
are good examples.
Developing Product Strategy

Developing a product strategy is the toughest and the most difficult job that has to done by the marketer.

Creating an efficient marketing strategy for a new or even existing product is done by every marketer and
consists of different steps which are as follows :

Establishing the objective that the product should acquire

Selecting the strategic alternatives for the achievement of the objective

Selecting the customers who should be targeted

Identifying the competitor target

Deciding on the core strategy for the product

Description of the marketing mix i.e product, price, place ,promotion

Deciding for the supporting functional programs