Page 144 - DMGT509_RURAL MARKETING

Unit 8: Rural Product Strategy

 Basic products (bread, basic foods, toothpaste, soap, clothes) Notes
 Extra products – unplanned purchases, caused by impulse and a momentary
encounter with a limited offer (sweets near the cash register, ice cream and
fresheners in crowded places)
 Special products (luxury) – have unique features and the buyers are ready to make
effort in order to buy them so that they can make a display of a certain social status
 Industry consumption
 Raw materials

 Subassembly
 Investment goods
 Commercial services
2. Classification regarding the durability
 Short usage goods – are consumed at the first usage (foods, drinks, fuel)

 Long usage goods – are used for longer periods of time (buildings, furniture, clothes)
 Services – activities conducted to satisfy needs that do not require possession over
the product (are intangible).

8.2 Levels of a Product

In the 1960’s, the economist Philip Kotler changed the perception of marketing. He described
what marketing is rather than what marketers do, thereby changing marketing from a
departmental specialisation into a corporate wide doctrine. For Kotler, marketing was a ‘social
process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and
exchanging products and value with others’.
For him, a product is more than physical. A product is anything that can be offered to a market
for attention, acquisition, or use, or something that can satisfy a need or want. Therefore, a
product can be a physical good, a service, a retail store, a person, an organisation, a place or even
an idea. Products are the means to an end wherein the end is the satisfaction of customer needs
or wants.

Figure 8.1: Five Product Levels

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