Product Analysis -- opened early for early birds

This is a team assignment. See the team list announcement in Bb. If you do this assignment by yourself, you will get a zero on it. You may not split your team into subteams--that will also get you a zero. You must work this out. Info on that is in course docs.

There are three sections to the project:

1. Describe the product and its marketing strategy.

2. Analyze the strategy, possibly including its competitors performance.

3. Recommend how to Improve the strategy using your own ideas..

Here are the details:

1. You should choose a product for which there is likely to be a lot of information available. E.g, iPhone, iWatch, Walmart (yes, a retail chain is a product and thus subject to a marketing strategy, too), Ford Focus, etc.

2. The marketing strategy chapters are chapter 6 (segmenting and targeting) and in chapter 12 (especially the last section on positioning and repositioning). Since you are to focus on the marketing strategy for the product you choose, you should choose a product that has the right kind of info available.

3. In your strategy, you will describe the different segments in the market to which your chosen product belongs, and you must name and describe the target segment for your chosen product. In this description mention the demographics, geographics, psychographics, and the benefits sought (i.e., their needs) for the target segment, as well as the size, growth rate, and so on--i.e., a product-market analysis. (Go online for more info on market analysis.)

This info on the product and its market can be found in libraries, Internet, etc. The Internet is not necessarily the best place to look. A great resource, believe it or not, is our reference librarian (5th floor is business). Every modern company with a big product has gone through this process using their Harvard-trained (some day it will read: TSU-trained) product managers, spending millions on the marketing research, so you know it is out there.

4. Now, describe exactly what the attributes and benefits of your chosen product are (do you know the difference?). Next, explain what these benefits do for the customer in the target segment, i.e., how they satisfy the needs of the customers in the target segment.

Product is the first "P" of the four P's---(ch11, 12, 13). Talk about pricing (the second "P", chapt19, 20) and how this helps determine the value of the product, and THUS what the particular value proposition of this product is. E.g., high quality and low price, etc.

NOTE: You see, marketing really works like this (using the by-now famous "Hansen Model" --- yes, yours truly):

a) Products have attributes/features that provide benefits that satisfy customer needs (and thus solve their problems).

--->From a product management/development perspective:

b) Customer needs (i.e., solutions to their problems) are satisfied/solved by the benefits that are produced by attributes that are available on products.

--->Use the Hansen Model to test whether your product is actually a well put-together product offering (i.e., strategy and four p's). This will help in your analysis of the product.

5. Next, outline the marketing program (distribution/promotion---the last two of the 4P's): what is the promotional platform (look that up in the text or online)---i.e., the claims made, the product or ad "hook" (look it up), etc., what different types of promotion does the company use (ads, personal sales, sales promo's, PR). How and where are they handling distribution? Through which channel? Where do they buy the materials/components, etc. for their product---that's part of the channel.

6. Next, give some performance results for your product. Remember that at the end of the marketing management planning cycle (chapt2) we have to do "control and feedback", which means looking at sales numbers, profitability, profits (know the diff between those two?---marketers have to be excellent in finance and accounting), market share, customer acceptance of the product, customer satisfaction, etc. After that, give your summary of how successful this product was, is, or will be.

7. Now, give some recommendations. Can you think of any adjustments that could be made to either the strategy (e.g., changing the target segment and thus setting a new position in the market), or to the marketing program (4p's) (e.g., change the ads, pricing, distribution, maybe even modify the product)?

Note that if you change the program (4p's), you have automatically changed the position and thus the strategy of the product in the market. So be careful: don't sink the product---find the best place for it in the market.

In sum: describe the product strategy, analyze it, and make recommendations to improve it.

FINALLY: choosing a product that is in trouble is tons more fun than one that is going perfectly. Tons.