Benefits and Solutions

Benefits and Solutions

The core benefit is what consumers feel they are getting when they purchase a product.

Benefits & Solutions

The four levels of a product include: core, tangible, augmented, and promised. Core, tangible, augmented and promised products feature characteristics (i.e., the total product concept or offer), which includes everything a consumer evaluates before making a purchase. These factors can include:

• Price
• Store environment and/or surroundings
• Brand promise/ value
• Advertising and marketing activities
• Buyer’s past experience
• Accessibility or convenience
• Brand reputation
• Packaging

We begin with the notion of the core product, which identifies what the consumers feel they are getting when they purchase the product. The core benefits derived when an overweight 45-year-old male purchases a $250 ten-speed bicycle is not transportation–it is the hope for better health and conditioning. In a similar vein, that same individual may install a $16,000 swimming pool in his backyard, not to obtain exercise, but to reflect the status he so desperately desires. Both are legitimate product cores. Because the core product is so individualized, and oftentimes vague, a full-time task of the marketer is to accurately identify the core product for a particular target market.

Once the core product has been indicated, the tangible product becomes important. This tangibility is reflected primarily in its quality level, features, brand name, styling, and packaging. Literally every product contains these components to a greater or lesser degree. Unless the product is one-of-a-kind (e.g. oil painting), the consumer will use at least some of these tangible characteristics to evaluate alternatives and make choices. In addition, the importance of each will vary across products, situations, and individuals. For example, for a 25-year old man, the selection of a particular brand of new automobile (core product = transportation) was based on tangible elements such as styling and brand name (choice = Corvette). In contrast, at age 45, the core product remains the same, but tangible components such as quality level and features become more important (choice = Mercedes).

The next level is the augmented product. Every product is backed up by a host of supporting services. The buyer often expects such services, so they will reject the core-tangible product if these are not available. Examples include restrooms, escalators, and elevators in the case of a department store, and warranties and return policies in the case of a lawn mower. For example, Dow Chemical has earned a reputation as a company that will go the distance to service an account. It means that a Dow sales representative will visit a troubled farmer after-hours in order to solve a serious problem. This extra service is an integral part of the augmented product and a key to their success. In a world with many strong competitors and few unique products, the role of the augmented product is clearly increasing.

The outer ring of the product is referred to as the promised product. Every product has an implied promise. An implied promise is a characteristic that is attached to the product over time. The car industry rates brands by their trade-in value. There is no definite promise that a Mercedes-Benz holds its value better than a BMW. There will always be exceptions. How many parents have installed a swimming pool based on the implied promise that their two teenagers will stay home more or that they will entertain friends more often?

Features and Attributes of a Product

The features and attributes of a product are integral to the product design process, which in turn assists in the creation of new products.

Product Design

This is the process of creating a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. It is the efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products.

The process of designing a new product (or updating the features of an existing one) is usually completed by a group of people, designers or field experts in the product they are creating, or specialists for a specific component of the product. These people would essentially determine all the features and attributes of the product. The process entails focuses on figuring out what is required, brainstorming possible ideas, creating mock prototypes, and then generating the product. At this point, product designers would still need to execute the idea, making it into an actual product and then evaluating its success and seeing if any improvements are necessary.

Product designers conceptualize and evaluate ideas, turning them into tangible products. Their role is to combine art, science, and technology to create features and attributes of current or new products that other people can use. Their evolving role has been facilitated by digital tools that now give them greater freedom to communicate, visualize, and analyze ideas.

The Design Process

This follows a guideline and involves three main sections: Analysis, Concept, and Synthesis – in a continuous feedback loop. Attributes and features play a role in all three sections.

Analysis: Here, the designers decide on committing to the project and finding a solution to the problem. They pool their resources into deciding how to solve the task most efficiently. Everyone in the team begins research into what the product should look like to satisfy the objective.

Concept: The key issue of the matter is defined. The conditions of the problem become objectives, and restraints on the situation become the parameters within which the new design must be constructed. The concept phase is where ideas for new features are considered.

Synthesis: The designers brainstorm different solutions for their design problem. Once they have narrowed down their ideas to a select few, they can outline their plan to make the product. Prototypes are built, the plan outlined in the previous step is realized and the product starts to become an actual object.

In the evaluation stage, the product is tested, and from there, improvements are made. Although this is the last stage, it does not mean that the process is over. The finished prototype may not work as well as hoped so new ideas may need to be brainstormed.

It is through this process of analysis, concept and synthesis that products are designed, with specific features and attributes added in order to maximize the use value and desirability of the product to the final user.

 

Feature Creep

The evolution of the Swiss army knife may be seen as a good example of this phenomenon: the ongoing expansion and addition of new features to a product. Extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and so can result in over-complication rather than maintaining a simple design. Viewed over a longer time period, extra or unnecessary features seem to creep into the system, beyond the initial goals.

The most common cause of feature creep is the desire to provide the consumer with a more useful or desirable product, in order to increase sales or distribution. However, once the product reaches the point at which it does everything that it is designed to do, the manufacturer is left with the choice of adding unneeded features, sometimes at the cost of efficiency, or sticking with the old version, at the cost of a perceived lack of improvement. While feature creep may have positive effects, it can also lead to cost overruns and product cancellations as producers lose sight of the original goal.