Product
The first element of the marketing mix is Product, and it depicts the tangible or intangible goods offered by organisations to customers to satisfy their needs and wants. In simple terms, it is a bundle of utilities. Product Mix means the important decisions related to a product like the design of the product, quality of the product, the quantity of the product, packaging of the product, etc. Besides these decisions, product assortment is also an essential part of the product mix. In simple terms, it means the number or volume of products and items a specific producer offers to the market. For example, ITC is an FMCG company and is dealing with different food products.
The essential components of the product mix are Branding, Packaging, and Labelling.
i) Branding: Under product mix, branding is one of the most important decisions taken by a marketer. Branding involves deciding whether the product of the firm will be marketed under a generic name or a brand name. The generic name is the name of the whole class of products. For example, soft drink is a generic name and Coca-Cola is a brand name.
ii) Packaging: It is the basic activity of every organisation and can be defined as a set of activities or tasks related to the designing, and production of an appropriate container, wrapper, bag, or box of the product. Packaging involves three levels; viz., Primary Packaging, Secondary Packaging, and Transportation Packaging.
iii) Labelling: It means putting identification marks on the package of the product. A label is basically the carrier of information regarding the product. The information provided on the label of a product includes the name of the product, its price, date of manufacturing, date of expiry, ingredients, warnings(if any), weight, etc.