Product and Service Strategies Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering product mix characteristics, product life cycle stages, the diffusion process, and product-line strategies from Marketing: Principles and Perspectives.

Product Mix

The total assortment of products and services marketed by a firm.

Product Line

A group of individual products that are closely related in some way.

Individual Product

Any brand or variant of a brand in a product line.

Product Mix Width

The number of product lines in the product mix.

Product Line Length

The number of products in a product line.

Product Mix Consistency

The relatedness of the different product lines in a product mix.

Product Life Cycle (PLC)

Describes the advancement of products through identifiable stages of their existence.

Diffusion Process

The process by which a new idea or new product is accepted by the market.

Innovators

The category of individual innovativeness in the diffusion process representing 2.5% of the market.

Early Adopters

The category of individual innovativeness in the diffusion process representing 13.5% of the market.

Early Majority

The category of individual innovativeness in the diffusion process representing 34% of the market.

Late Majority

The category of individual innovativeness in the diffusion process representing 34% of the market.

Laggards

The category of individual innovativeness in the diffusion process representing 16% of the market.

Introduction Stage

The initial Product Life Cycle stage characterized by low sales, losses, and little competition, with marketing focused on awareness and trial by communicating benefits.

Growth Stage

The Product Life Cycle stage characterized by rapid sales growth, increasing profits, and increasing competition, with marketing focused on usage of the firm's brand through specific brand communication, lower prices, and expanded distribution.

Maturity Stage

The Product Life Cycle stage characterized by slow sales growth, decreasing profits, and fierce competition, where the goal is to maintain market share using sales promotions, dropping prices, expanding distribution, and introducing new uses or versions of the product.

Decline Stage

The final Product Life Cycle stage characterized by declining sales, low profits, and changing competition, requiring a decision to maintain, harvest, or divest the product.

Cannibalization

Occurs when a new product takes sales away from existing products.

Product Line Contraction

Decreasing the length of a product line, considered by firms when products are unsuccessful, reach the decline stage of the PLC, or have high long product line marketing costs.