Marketing_Management_14th_Edition-min

Setting Product Strategy
At the heart of a great brand is a great product. Product is a key element
in the market offering. To achieve market leadership, firms must offer products and services of
superior quality that provide unsurpassed customer value.
Ford Motor Company endured some tough times at the beginning of the 21st century.
A safety controversy about its best-selling Ford Explorer and high gas prices
that hurt sales of its trucks and SUVs put the company in deep financial straits.
Perhaps the biggest concern was public perception that Ford products were not
high quality. A new CEO, Alan Mulally, arrived in 2006 determined to set Ford on a
different path. Rejecting government bailouts during the subsequent recession created some
goodwill, but Mulally knew reliable, stylish, and affordable vehicles that performed well would
make or break the company’s fortunes. A redesigned high-mileage Ford Fusion with innovative
Sync hands-free phone-and-entertainment system and an environmentally friendly hybrid option
caught customers’ attention, as did the hip, urban-looking seven-seat Ford Flex SUV with a center
console mini-refrigerator.
Mulally felt it was critical to use Ford’s vast infrastructure and scale to create vehicles that,
with small adjustments, could easily be sold all over the world. The result of extensive global
research, the Ford Fiesta hatchback was a striking example of this world-car concept. The rear
of the car resembled a popular small sport-utility, its giant headlights were typical of more
expensive cars, and dashboard instruments were modeled after a cell phone keypad. The company
knew it had a winner when the Fiesta won a uniformly positive response in Chinese,
European, and U.S. showrooms. Ford also relied on experiential and
social media in marketing. Before its U.S. launch, 150 Fiestas
toured the country for test drives and 100 were given to bloggers
for six months to allow them to share their experiences. Ford’s
product and marketing innovations paid off. While the rest of the
U.S. auto industry continued to tank, the Fiesta garnered thousands
of preorders and Ford actually turned a profit in the first quarter
of 2010. 1
Marketing planning begins with formulating an
offering to meet target customers’ needs or wants. The
customer will judge the offering by three basic elements:
product features and quality, services mix and quality, and price
(see Figure 12.1). In this chapter we examine product, in
Chapter 13, services, and in Chapter 14, price. All three elements
must be meshed into a competitively attractive offering.
Product Characteristics
and Classifications
Many people think a product is tangible, but a product is anything that can be offered to a market
to satisfy a want or need, including physical goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places,
properties, organizations, information, and ideas.
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