Key Marketing, Consumer, and Product Terms

Key Marketing Terms

Marketing

Marketing encompasses all activities that move goods from producers to consumers, including production, distribution, packaging, and pricing.

Consumer

A consumer is the user of a product and a member of the market.

Product

A product can be a consumer good, an industrial good, a service, a specific category, or a brand.

Advertising

Advertising is any means of promoting the sale and use of a product through paid promotion in major media.

Marketing Concept

The marketing concept is the idea, basic to modern marketing, that goods should respond to consumers’ needs.

Merchandising

Merchandising refers to sales promotion and paid promotion through minor media.

Brand Development Index (BDI)

The BDI compares sales of a brand to total sales in the product category.

Category Development Index (CDI)

The CDI compares sales in the product category to sales in a specific geographical region.

All Commodity Volume (ACV)

ACV represents the total amount of sales in the product category.

Marketing Information System (MIS)

An MIS is a computer-based system for analyzing data to use in making marketing decisions.

Store-Count Distribution

Store-count distribution is the number of stores that carry a given brand.

Key Consumer Terms

Motive

A motive is a desire that moves consumers to act upon a need. The motive for a purchasing decision may be conscious or unconscious, rational or emotional.

Attitude

An attitude is a person’s opinion or feeling about someone or something.

Principal Learning Theory

  • Meaning: Used to relate advertising content to consumers in a personal way.
  • Reward: Used in advertising to promise favorable results from product use.
  • Contiguity: Used in advertising to associate the product with an agreeable situation.
  • Repetition: The reiteration of a brand name or advertisement.

Heavy-User Theory

The heavy-user theory states that a relatively small proportion of consumers use a relatively large proportion of a certain product.

Key Product Terms

Image

Image is how consumers perceive a company, product, or brand; it is the mental picture its name evokes.

Strategy of Concentration

A strategy of concentration is an approach to market segmentation in which the marketing effort is directed toward one large population subgroup.

Strategy of Differentiation

A strategy of differentiation is an approach to market segmentation in which two or more subgroups are identified and a marketing program is designed for each.

Product Differentiation

Product differentiation is a marketing strategy in which a product is made to appear different from competitive products through a change in the product or by advertising claims.

Line Extension

A line extension is the addition of a new product to an existing set.

Pioneering Advertising

Pioneering advertising introduces products to consumers.

Competitive Advertising

Competitive advertising promotes the superiority of one product over others in the category.

Retentive Advertising

Retentive advertising is designed to keep the brand in the public mind.

Product Life Cycle

The product life cycle refers to the four stages that a product typically goes through: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is the consumer’s knowledge that the brand exists.

Brand Preference

Brand preference is the consumer’s choice of the brand over other, similar ones.

Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty refers to the consumer’s well-established preference for the brand; they continue to buy it despite possible advantages of competing brands.

Product Feature

A product feature is a physical characteristic of a product.

Benefit Claim

A benefit claim is how an advertiser says that a product will help a consumer.

Position

Position is the place of a product in the consumer’s mind.

Product Concept

The product concept is the producer’s idea of the product’s principal value for consumers; it is the essential message of an advertising campaign.