Wondering what is the product concept?
You’ve heard of the product concept in marketing and now you are looking to know all there is about it?
The product concept is a subset of marketing concepts and in this article, we will learn all there is about it.
We have divided this article into the following sections for your ease of reference:
- Marketing concepts
- Product concept definition
- Product concept in marketing
- Product concept examples
- Advantages of product concept
- Product concept disadvantages
- Types of product concept
- Takeaways
Let’s get started.
Marketing concepts
Marketing concepts are philosophies used by companies to market and promote their products.
Marketing concepts underpin a company’s overall marketing strategies to achieve more sales, build a long-term relationship with its customers and become a profitable organization.
There are five important marketing concepts that companies can adopt:
- Production concept
- Product concept
- Selling concept
- Marketing concept
- Societal concept
In this article, we will look at the product concept meaning and concept as a whole.
The product concept in marketing management is important to understand and implement to achieve greater profitability and respond to your customer needs.
Product concept definition
So what is the definition of the product concept?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines a product concept as “the belief that a good product will sell without the need for much advertising or marketing”.
In other words, the product concepts leads a company to believe that by making the best possible product, it will sell itself.
The product concept philosophy assumes that other factors such as price and availability will not influence the customer’s decision as much as the product quality will.
On the basis of the product concept marketing philosophy, a company will provide its customers with better features and functionalities, better usability and performance and more benefits than its competitors to a point where customers will inevitably buy from them.
Product concept in marketing
The product concept in marketing entails that customers will always prefer products that are of high quality and performance over others.
Companies employing a product concept in their marketing strategy will constantly focus on product improvement, innovation and greater performance.
For the product concept to be effective, you must have an idea of what your customers are looking for.
For the best results, you should use the marketing concept philosophy alongside your product concept.
For example, if you make the best walkman today, you may nail your product concept perfectly but you’ll flop tremendously as nobody cares for walkman players anymore.
The effective product concept in marketing is one that considers the relevance of the product as much as the product quality.
Product concept examples
What are some product concept examples that work well?
You can find the product concept in action in high-tech industries and the technology space.
In these industries, companies will keep on releasing a new product with added features, better performance and more innovative.
Apple Inc. is a great example of a company that has used the product concept to its advantage.
Apple has marketed its products to be of high quality, innovative and trend-setting.
They continually innovate and release exciting products that customers love.
Apple makes sure that the products it releases are of high-quality, provide customers many useful features and perform better than its competitors.
When they announce that a new product will be released, customers will go out of their way to buy Apple’s products.
Apple banks on the fact that their product is so good that it will do most of the selling.
This is an example of how successful a company can be using the product concept.
Advantages of product concept
One of the most important advantages of the product concept is that you are focused on producing the best product possible, of high quality and performance.
The idea is that your product will be so feature-rich and innovative that you will not need to put a lot of marketing efforts in selling it.
Customers valuing quality and performance will have less resistance in paying to buy your product instead of your competitors’.
To take advantage of the product concept, you’ll need to leverage it with other marketing concepts.
Used with the marketing concept, your company can achieve great results.
If you understand your customer needs and are able to build the best possible product to suit their needs, you will succeed in implementing the product concept in marketing.
Small businesses can gain competitive advantage by taking advantage of the product concept to focus all their efforts on building a better product.
If done right, small businesses can encroach into the market share of bigger players.
Their main differentiating factor will be better product, higher quality, better performance, more innovation, better usability, more features and so on.
Businesses able to take advantage of these factors can succeed quite well.
In technology and high-tech industries, since technology evolves quickly, small businesses can quickly penetrate into a market segment and solidify their position.
If used correctly, the advantages of the product concept can result in an exponential growth of a company.
Product concept disadvantages
The product concept has some disadvantages.
If you operate in an industry where customers demand better quality and performance, your company will need to be careful in how often you release product upgrades or new versions.
If you release updates and upgrades too often, you can frustrate your customers as they will not have enough time to take advantage of the version they bought.
Releasing too often may also result in your product having little difference with the previous version and the new version, making it less enticing for your customers.
In that case, a customer may not purchase your latest version.
That’s a lost opportunity to make a sale.
On the other hand, if you do not release upgrades or new versions at a good frequency, your customers will think that your company has fallen behind and is no longer innovating.
Customers may start evaluating your competitors and by the time you release your latest version, the customers will have already bought from your competitor.
The product concept can also lead to “marketing myopia”.
Marketing myopia is when companies focus so much on quality and performance that they no longer deliver what customers need.
If you lose sight of what customers demand, better quality and performance may not lead you to more sales.
If you produce the best polaroid camera in today’s market, no matter the quality and performance of your polaroid camera, you will not make a lot of sales.
A polaroid is not what people want.
The product concept must be employed in such a way that the company focuses on bringing quality, features, innovations and performance as needed by its customers.
What are the different types of product concept?
Types of product concept
There are different types of product concepts used by companies to guide their product development.
Although this topic in itself is quite vast, we’ll briefly look at the product concept in the context of product development.
Customers may not have a detailed understanding of how a product is developed or its technical specifications but they can understand product concepts as presented in the company’s marketing material.
Here are some common product concepts companies use to market their product:
- Convenience
- Usability
- Quality
- Functionality
- Performance
- Price
- Safety
- Risk
- Experience
Of course, there are other types of product concepts marketed by companies.
The ones that work well for companies adopting the product concept in marketing management are the types relating to the quality of their product, better functionality, performance, user-friendliness, conveniences and safety.
Depending on your company’s products, you may want to focus your attention on a few types of product concepts so you can really get your message across.
Takeaways
The product concept in marketing management is the process where companies focus on delivering the best possible product to the market with the expectation that customers are will be mainly interested in the latest and the best.
The advantage of the product concept is that you can continually innovate and improve your product in such a way that you remain ahead of the competition.
A disadvantage of focusing too narrowly on your product alone is that you may fall into the “marketing myopia” trap.
Marketing myopia is when you lose sight of what the customer needs and you build a high-quality but entirely irrelevant product.
The product concept can be used with the marketing concept to really target what customer needs and deliver the best possible product.
We hope you were able to better grasp the product concept outlined in this article.
Do you have any comments to share with us? We would love to hear from you. Drop us a comment.
