Product Differentiation Essay

DefinitionDevelopment or incorporation of attributes (such as benefits, price, quality, styling, advantage, etc.) that a harvests intended customers perceive to be divergent and desirable. Advertising and promotion of a mathematical product is based on its divergentiating characteristics. reference book http//www.businessdictionary.com/definition/product- specialty.htmlToday, the market is crowded with similar checks, clamoring for the attention of customers. In order for their brands to stand out, companies strive hard to make them appear take issueent from competing brands. This is product preeminence. production differentiation is an objective that a business may try to achieve through its marketing. Any business, must try to discoer products from those of competitors, so as to gain a competitive edge over them, thereby attracting more customers. This difference can be achieved by mend the product- making it better than that of the competitors or it can be perceived- s uch as a strong brand identity element developed in the promotional campaign.Need for product differentiation unremarkably customers can non tell the difference between competing products- accordingly the need to score maturation a competitive advantageFocus and differentiationA product may have a lot of attributes, but it is essential to heighten on however few of the attributes. Eg Volvo-safety, BMW-performance but it doesnt mean that Volvo does non perform or BMW is not safe. They have just focused on those aspects of their products. Therefore their products will be tell apartd on that particular attribute. If a product claims to be good at e realthing, you run the risk of consumers not believing what you say, even though you may have all those attributes. If a product is focused 1) more credible 2) customers will think that they be as strong in other areas.What to differentiateEasiest way to differentiate is on price, but it is least effective as competitors can ever s o copy it easily. utilisation Indian computer market included companies such as HCL and IBM. Then came Siva from sterling computers which sold its computers at a cheaper price. Therefore others followed suit, and then Siva had to further differentiate its product in order to attract customers as competing products were similarly priced. Hence, it is better to differentiate on other attributes such as- features, performance, reliability, reparability, design, direction, performance and so on.Examples1) Blackberry- Differentiated by addition of BBM in their smart ph unmatchables. Although other smart phones with IM platforms existed, Blackberry was the one of the first to offer this service to customers as a standard on its devices. Their competition did not have any such service at the time. This attracted customers. 2) Promise- People thought promise was different from other toothpastes as it had split oil however even some other toothpastes had clove oil, but only Promise focused on this attribute and hence it was perceived as a differentiating characteristic. 3) Hero Honda motorcycles- differentiated in equipment casualty of fuel efficiency- fill it shut it, forget itBranding and Product differentiationBranding is one way of differentiating products and services. Industries like the garments and tobacco industries, for example, use stigmatisation very effectively as the products within these segments are often very similar and have little to distinguish themselves from each other. Branding helps to celebrate customer loyalty. Example Smokers, are very particular about their brand and believe that no other brand can satisfy them. In an experiment, 300 smokers who were loyal to 3 major brands were given an unidentifiable exemplification of each brand to smoke and were asked to identify their own brand.The result only 35% were able to identify the brands and under the law of averages, pure guesses accounted for a third of correct identifications. The reaso n for this was that brands of cigarettes within the same category (menthol for example) differ very marginally in terms of strength, flavourand taste, and it is difficult for a smoker to truly distinguish between them. The reason why a smoker is loyal to a particular brand is the advertisment. Eg Charminar it takes charminar to satisfy a man like you reinforces that only Charminar can satisfy the man who smokes themProduct differentiation vs USPUSP is not the same as Product differentiation.USP refers to advertising to march on a products differentiation while Product differentiation is the process of describing the differences between products or services.Types of differentiationHorizontal Differentiation is by the customers preference/taste of certain characteristics of the product. (Same qualities/price, different style/taste/colour) Perceived value remains the same. (eg different colours of lip rouges) just Products differ in some characteristic which all consumers agree is b est. establish on quality. Prices differ as perceived value differs (eg Different brands of lipstick Mac, Lakme, Lipice) Horizontal differentiation is about consumers wants and preferences, while vertical differentiation focuses on the consumers willingness to pay for the quality.RememberDO NOT offer wildly magnify differentiation that the market does not want. (eg High priced mens mass soap Aramusk was unsuccessful due to price)DO NOT negate serviceable and expansive differentiation by under attending to other split of the product- service package. The difference should be OVER AND ABOVE the MINIMUM expectations.Example Fancy hotels with poor serviceThe product is not differentiated until the node understands the difference . The consumer perception is what matters.