For this exercise, you need to select two recent purchases of $50 or more. Due to the unique nature of textbook purchases, please do NOT select a textbook for this assignment. The products you select should be from vastly different product categories. For example, my most recent $50+ purchase was my Sprint wireless service…so I wouldn’t also pick my Cirro Energy bill (both are services)…but I could either pick the pair of Rock & Roll Cowgirl jeans I bought last week (clothing and wireless service are “vastly different”) or I could pick the Samsung blu-ray player I bought over Christmas or my son’s new PlayStation (wait, he bought that himself…) or I could pick my son’s birthday dinner at Red Lobster.
To receive credit for this exercise, create a new journal entry and answer the following questions:
- Briefly describe the products you selected using branding terminology from Chapter 7. Why did you select these brands and how would you describe your loyalty to each brand?
- What are the features, advantages, and benefits of each specific product/brand you selected? Consider the way each company positions the brand in the market. Does each brand’s positioning match the features, advantages, and benefits you identified? Explain.
- Consider the broad category/market for each product. Which stage of the product life cycle is each market in currently? What characteristics lead you to classify each market this way? Do you believe either product is on the verge of moving to the next life cycle stage? If so, explain why…if not, discuss what would need to occur in the market for it to move to the next stage.
- Consider ONE of your product selections. Using terms from Chapter 7, identify the company’s strategies for the current life cycles stage you identified above. Are the company’s strategies consistent with the strategies the book discussed for that stage? Explain.
