Chapter 10: Product Concepts

Next week, Constantine will be taking a much-needed vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. In preparation for the trip, Constantine has composed a shopping list, and on the list are breakfast cereal, bottled water, toothpaste, and rope for hanging a hammock. These items are classified as which of the following types of products?

• Shopping

• Unsought

• Convenience

• Specialty

Romana is 45 years old. She recently met with her financial planner to review her contributions to her Roth IRA, a retirement account. The financial planner mentioned to Romana that she should consider purchasing long-term care insurance because a high proportion of consumers will likely spend one to two years in a nursing home or assisted living space before the end of their lives. The financial planner said that premiums usually increase after age 50 and that there were several good plans Romana should consider. Romana was somewhat familiar with the concept of long-term care insurance, but she had never thought about purchasing the product. For Romana, long-term care insurance would be which of the following types of products?

• Shopping

• Convenience

• Unsought

• Specialty

The Cleveland Clinic has developed a reputation as a high-quality care center where people from around the world might travel for certain procedures, such as open-heart surgery. The Cleveland Clinic uses television and print media advertising to create awareness about its heart center and to publicize the excellent care patients receive. If a person has a need for heart surgery, it would be classified as which of the following types of products?

• Unsought

• Convenience

• Specialty

• Shopping

Leopold enjoys hiking and often backpacks for several days or up to a week at a time. They are interested in purchasing a new tent and are looking for something that is lightweight, durable, and easy to set up. Leopold has visited an REI store, Gander Mountain, and several specialty stores in their area that sell tents. In addition, they have explored the options via the Internet to learn more about what’s available. To Leopold, a new tent is which of the following types of products?

• Shopping

• Convenience

• Specialty

• Unsought

Philomena is interested in purchasing a new laptop computer. There are many different brands, each with a variety of models. Each model varies based on the memory chip, graphics cards, speed of the hard drive, size of the monitor, and available warranty. Philomena notices that it is relatively easy to compare one brand to another because the computer manufacturers use the same brand of components, such as Intel memory chips. Thus, laptop computers would be classified as which of the following types of shopping products?

• Homogeneous

• Heterogeneous

• Complex

• Multi-attribute

Subaru is an automobile manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company has a diverse product line of automobiles, including the Crosstrek, Outback, Forester, Ascent, Impreza, and Legacy models. Organizations such as Subaru derive numerous benefits from organizing related items into product lines, including all but which of the following?

• Standardized components

• Advertising economies

• Efficient sales and distribution

• Brand insistence

Yoplait offers a variety of different single-serve yogurt cups in flavors such as strawberry, blueberry, chocolate, banana, and key lime pie. Yoplait also offers another product line of yogurt products called Go-Gurt, which is marketed for kids and served in long tubes. Parents who purchase and enjoy single-serve cups for themselves are likely to purchase Go-Gurt for their children. What benefit does Yoplait receive by using product lines?

• Non-standardized components

• Uncoupled sales and distribution

• .Equivalent quality

• Package diversity

Hormel, a food processing company headquartered in Minnesota, has a product line called “side dishes.” Each side dish product item serves four people and is packaged in a convenient plastic tray, which is suitable for the microwave. Hormel has several different varieties of macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and broccoli with rice. The number of product items offered within Hormel’s side dish line is referred to as which of the following?

• Product mix capacity

• Product line column

• Product mix width

• Product line depth

SharkNinja is a global product design and technology company based in Needham, Massachusetts. For years, SharkNinja has offered a traditional-sized, “corded” (i.e., one that plugs into an electrical outlet) vacuum cleaner, but it has recently released a “cordless” vacuum cleaner that can hold an electrical charge for up to one hour of vacuuming. The model is lightweight, portable, and can be reconfigured to allow owners to use the many attachments that come with the vacuum cleaner model. SharkNinja’s introduction of cordless vacuum cleaners would be classified as which of the following types of product modification?

• Style

• Functional

• Reverse engineering

• Quality

Based on a recent poll, 40 percent of millennials are not eating cereal for breakfast. According to this group, cereal is “an inconvenient breakfast choice because they (have to) to clean up after eating it.” Fauna, a millennial resident of Alamogordo, New Mexico, is not one of the “40 percent.” In fact, they eat cereal for breakfast almost every morning, and their favorite cereal is raisin bran. The term “raisin bran” is which of the following?

• A service mark

• A trademark

• A generic product name

• A wholesale product name