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Chapter 13 – Products and Services for Consumers
Teaching Objectives
Products and services, the first part of the marketing mix to be discussed, is covered here with consumer
products and services, and the next chapter on industrial products and services. An overall point that
needs to be made with these two chapters is that companies face two different problems in developing
products for international markets – they either have an existing product that needs to be evaluated for
possible adaptation or they are developing a product for global markets from scratch. The two situations
require different approaches to product development. The decisions as to whether to standardize or adapt,
to develop global products and global brands need to be addressed at the beginning of the chapter since
the direction taken will influence later discussions. The teaching objectives are to:
1) Familiarize students with the debate between standardization and adaptation and global products
and brands.
2) Stress the importance of offering products and services suitable to the intended market. That the
issue is not whether to adapt or standardize, but how much adaptation is necessary and to what
point a product can be standardized.
3) Make them aware of the country of origin effect on how products are perceived.
4) Explore the relationship between consumer perceptions of products and culture. Special emphasis
on the product as an innovation and the possibility of resistance to an innovation if it is too new
or disruptive of the norm.
5) Present two methods for screening products and services for adaptation; the analysis of
characteristics of innovation and analysis of product components model.
Comments and Suggestions
1. Coverage of this chapter can be divided into three parts. First, a broad discussion of how cultural
factors and the country of origin affect the acceptance of a product, how a product is received if it is
perceived as an innovation and the issues of global products and standardization versus adaptation.
Second, there are physical and mandatory requirements that require adaptation, and third, screening
products for adaptation. This third point recognizes the fact that most companies have existing
products that require evaluation for adaptation, whether mandatory or cultural, before being
introduced in another country.
2. Exhibit 13.3, Product Component Model is helpful in focusing on the different components of a
product that may require adaptation. Using this model also helps me discuss the issue of the core
component and product platform–the most costly part of a product to adapt yet possibly the most
easily standardized.
3. If the students are asked to do a research project similar to the one described Part I-F, above, The
Country Notebook – A Guide for Developing a Marketing Plan, many of the points in the chapter can
be brought out in class. We bring a product to class and ask students to respond on how they think the
product will need to be adapted or could be standardized in the country they are studying.
4. Lecture Outline
I. Quality Products
A. Quality Defined
B. Maintaining Quality
C. Physical or Mandatory Requirements for Adaptation
D. Green Marketing and Product Development
II. Products and Culture
A. Innovate Products and Adaptation
B. Diffusion of Innovations
C. Production of Innovations
III. Analyzing Product Components for Adaptation
A. Core Component
B. Packaging Component
C. Support Services Component
IV. Marketing Consumer Services Globally
A. Services Opportunities in Global Markets
B. Barriers to Entering Global Markets for Consumer Services
V. Consumer Services
VI. Brands in International Markets
A. Global Brands
B. National Brands
C. Country of Origin Effect and Global Brands
D. Private Brands
