Marketing of Products & Services

Five friends at random were contacted via email and the following question was asked from them: What do you think are the next important products in the marketplace within the next 10 years?

Here is their response along with their age, profession and geographic location

1. Lydia – touch screen interactive TV

2. Sam – biometric ID replacing passwords

3. Ariana – hand-held x-ray machine

4. John – hologram phone

5. Ron – self-driven cars

If I had to do a more in-depth consumer marketing research, I would gather the following qualitative data through forming a focus group[1]:

1. age and gender

2. profession

3. geographic location

4. income

5. shopping/spending habits (price, location, brand, quality, frequency, etc)[2]

6. household information

According to Kotler, service is any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of any thing. However, products are tangible entities which are offered to fulfill the wants, needs and demands of the customer.[3]

---

[1] Bobby Calder, Focus Groups and the Nature of Qualitative Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 14, No. 3, Aug. 1977, pp. 353-364

[2] Dennis H. Tootelian, The Team Market: An Exploratory Analysis of Income, Spending and Shopping Patterns, MCB UP Ltd

[3] Philipp Kotler, Bernard Dubios, Marketing Management, Pearson Education, 11^th Ed. 1977, Paris