Product Management

Question 1

What is a product?

Answer 1

The sum of all tangible and intangible characteristics of a product
Anything you can launch on a market for consumption and/or usage answering a specific need
Material objects, persons, places, organisations and ideas

Question 2

What is a service?

Answer 2

Immaterial products (no transfer of ownership)

Question 3

What are the characteristics of a product?

Answer 3

property
visible
tangible and intangible

Question 4

What are service characterstics?

Answer 4

intangible
not your property
inseperable
unvisible
variation
transience

Question 5

Name the 3 product layers

Answer 5

inner core product
actual product
augmented product

Question 6

What is the objective of product layering?

Answer 6

Define and evaluating products

Question 7

What is the objective of product development?

Answer 7

value creation to satisfy customers

Question 8

What are the specific marketing tasks for developing a product?

Answer 8

determining core needs of target consumer
new product solutions via NPD
expand product through line extensions etc

Question 9

What are ways to segment a product?

Answer 9

Durability (durable or nondurable)
consumer product (FMCG CPG) )or industrial product

Question 10

Name the 4 four different consumer goods

Answer 10

convenience product
shopping product
specialty product
unsought product

Question 11

Define a convenience product

Answer 11

bought frequently
low price and high promotion
low effort to obtain and no comparison

Question 12

Name further segmentations of convenience products

Answer 12

routine products (detergent, coffee)
impulse products (chocolate, licorice)
emergency products (stain remover)

Question 13

Define shopping products

Answer 13

higher customer involvement through search
bought less frequently
time for more comparison and selection based on price, style, quality, and fit
less distribution points
more sales support and advice

Question 14

What are speciality products?

Answer 14

offers unique benefits characteristics or special brand identity attracting substantial consumer group. make extra effort to buy
less focused on price
less brand comparison
exclusive distribution
targeted promotions

Question 15

define unsought products

Answer 15

consumers know product but less interested in buying or using
lots of brand communication
personal selling
other aggressive marketing activities

Question 16

what are ways to further segment specialty products?

Answer 16

organisation marketing to create attitudes toward specific organisations (NGO or for profit)
people marketing all activities to create attitude to specific person (stromae, trump)
ideas through social marketing to stimulate acceptance of societal idea or lifestyle (old money)

Question 17

What decisions do product managers have to make about individual products?

Answer 17

product characteristics
brand
packaging
labeling
product support

Question 18

Explain product characteristic decisions

Answer 18

define benefits product offers and make it tangible by quality style design weight and size

Question 19

Why is overall quality important?

Answer 19

consistency of product creates high consumer satisfaction through internal and external checks and strong market positioning

Question 20

Explain the importance of functions

Answer 20

Every product is unique as it is offering different functions. By adding or adapting functions you can launch new products/models

Question 21

Explain importance of packaging

Answer 21

not only protects goods but also makes it easy to recognise for consumers. describes the product
primary and secondary packaging (multipack) and transport packaging

Question 22

What are trends in packaging?

Answer 22

less waste (refill packs)
recycling
product safety

Question 23

Explain importance of style and design

Answer 23

differentiates products from the rest
style is external appearance whilst design goes further by impacting function

Question 24

A good design must

Answer 24

Catch the attention
Improves product performance
Decreases production costs
Gives a competitive advantage to the product

Question 25

Explain importance of weight and size

Answer 25

Format strategy= bigger products in Cash & Carry Different sizes= product appearance in different sizes

Question 26

What are the decisions product managers must make regarding branding?

Answer 26

branded or not Branded house versus House of brands Brand name Brand positioning Brand strategy Repositioning of brands

Question 27

Explain the importance of branding to consumers

Answer 27

Trust (product quality, service) Convenience (easy to find in the shop) Innovations Status - Exclusivity

Question 28

What are labels used for? what is the function of labels?

Answer 28

provide identity to product or brand quality functions communicate promotion warnings

Question 29

What are some of the legal guidelines and restrictions of labelling?

Answer 29

claims on packaging best before date nutritional info content and weight

Question 30

Define what are product supporting services?

Answer 30

additional services with regard to specific product before or after. augmented product important tool for differentiation and cheaper to maintain existing customer relationship different packages to fulfill needs of different target customers and can earn more

Question 31

What are product group decisions

Answer 31

decisions made to a group of products rather than indivuduals

Question 32

What is a product group?

Answer 32

products that are closely linked to each other

Question 33

Name product group characteristics

Answer 33

Offers same functions Sold to same customer groups Meets same needs of customers Are distributed by the same channels Are part of the same price category Have the same production process

Question 34

What is a product group ?

Answer 34

set of individual products, groups, variants, and brands offered by same company

Question 35

What decisions are there to make in a product group and why?

Answer 35

each product has own marketing strategy and decisions include length, width, and core products in group

Question 36

What influences product assortment length?

Answer 36

positioning strategy profit upselling cross selling

Question 37

What is upselling?

Answer 37

sells consumers larger batches or portions

Question 38

What is cross selling?

Answer 38

sells combination of products in assortment

Question 39

What is product length?

Answer 39

the amount of products in the assortment

Question 40

What are reasons to add new products and extend product length?

Answer 40

capacity left reseller SKU demand increase new opportunities and market segment

Question 41

What are the costs of adding new products and extending product length?

Answer 41

inventory costs research and development production switches promotion during introduction

Question 42

what is a product assortment?

Answer 42

Total range of product groups, products, product varieties and brands a company is selling

Question 43

What are the components used to create, modify, and influence a product assortment?

Answer 43

width: number of product groups length: total number of articles depth: number of varieties in a product group consistency: relation between various products in group (use, needs, channels)

Question 44

What are the reasons for NPD?

Answer 44

increased compeitition more customer demands growth strategies of companies fast changing technologies need for continuous innovation

Question 45

What are the NPD approaches?

Answer 45

buying a product in-house process

Question 46

What is the risk of NPD?

Answer 46

financial investment time and market unpredictability delays during the development

Question 47

What is the NPD process?

Answer 47

Strategy (& environment needed) for new products Idea generation Idea screening Concept development & testing Strategy & marketing mix development Business plan (investments needed, profitability) Pre-production Market test Production & Launch Evaluation