Services are intangible items that an organization provides to its customers. Because of the intangible nature of services they are well suited for Internet distribution. To illustrate, let's take a look at MapQuest.

The Internet site MapQuest, launched in February of 1996, provides its visitors with mapping related services. According to the site, each month 20 percent of Internet users access MapQuest's content. This content is available directly at the MapQuest Internet site and also as links on many other popular web sites. MapQuest delivers more than 185 million maps via the Internet monthly.

MapQuest is the front door to information on millions of locations around the world. The main service categories provided include maps, driving directions, road trip planning, traffic, yellow and white pages, and city guides.

The maps category allows visitors to obtain maps of virtually any location. MapQuest also offers driving directions. These include a highlighted route on a map and detailed written directions leading to the desired destination. The road trip planner feature assists with detailed driving directions and maps, hotels, destination guides, and other information about the destination. The yellow and white pages are similar to those found in phonebooks. This feature allows the Internet site's visitors to find contact information for residents and businesses in any city. MapQuest's city guide gives its visitors information on such things as entertainment and shopping within a chosen city. MapQuest also offers real-time traffic reports for over 65 U. S. cities.

1. Visit the MapQuest Internet site. What are the main services provided by MapQuest?



2. Visit the MapQuest Internet site and obtain a map for your home address. Evaluate the result.



3. Visit the MapQuest Internet site. How long would a drive from New York to Los Angeles take you?



4. How would you describe the target market(s) for MapQuest?



5. Contrast the MapQuest.com site with the Maps.com site. Can you highlight some different features offered by Maps.com?

- Birgit Leisen

Strong brand names are important tools for creating and maintaining a loyal customer base. We often take brand names such as Coke, McDonalds, and BMW for granted because they have been around for quite some time and are well known to us. However, to become this well known and to establish a brand name is a difficult, time consuming, and expensive process.

A brand is a distinguishing name or symbol such as a logo or a trademark. It is carefully designed to identify products and to differentiate those products from competitors' offerings. For instance, in the fashion industry, Polo, Nautica, and Tommy Hilfiger are some well-known competing brands.

These companies follow a corporate branding strategy. They have established brand identity by using their corporate names to identify their entire product offerings. This is a particularly good strategy when all products fit within relatively narrow lines. Polo, Nautica, and Tommy Hilfiger use the advantage of corporate branding by designing a common advertising campaign and sales promotion program to support all their products. These popular corporate brand names also facilitate the successful introduction of new products.

Just recently, Polo opened its online store and now offers men, women, children, gifts, fragrance, vintage, and travel items for sale under the Polo name. Presently, Nautica's and Tommy Hilfiger's sites offer only information on the products that they sell. However, both sites help with locating the nearest store. Tommy Hilfiger offers men, women, jeans, kids, home, and toiletries items under the company's brand name. Nautica offers sportswear, swimwear, tailored items (dressier items), and sleepwear under its umbrella brand name.

1. How can you identify a Polo product?
2. How can you identify a Tommy Hilfiger product?
3. How can you identify a Nautica product?
4. Visit the Polo Web site. What are some product categories sold under the Polo brand name?
5. Can you buy products at the Nautica and Tommy Hilfiger Internet sites? How about the Polo site?

- Birgit Leisen

Product involvement has a significant impact on the way consumers make decisions. If a buyer is very involved in a purchase decision, s/he is likely to spend a lot of time and effort collecting and analyzing information related to that purchase. On the other hand, if the buyer does not consider a purchase decision critical, and is only marginally involved in the purchase, s/he will make the decision without much deliberation or cognitive efforts. Buying a house or a car is considered a high involvement purchase for most consumers, whereas buying candy would be considered a low involvement purchase. Let us compare and contrast the Web sites of two companies¾one selling cars and the other selling candies, and see if the sites take the consumer involvement levels into consideration in their site design.

For cars, visit the Web site of BMW. For candies, visit the Web site of Wrigley chewing gums. After visiting the Web sites, answer the following questions.

1. How does the decision-making process for a high involvement purchase differ from that of a low involvement purchase? Give examples from the two Web sites mentioned above of how companies can better design their Web sites to reflect these differences.
2. Car buying is a high involvement decision. What are the factors that play an important role in this decision? Give examples from the BMW site of how these issues are addressed by BMW.
3. A high involvement decision tends to be a rational, reason-based decision. Still, there can be a strong, emotional component of this decision. How does the BMW Web site address this aspect of the purchase decision?

- Praveen Aggarwal

A sea cruise conjures up all manner of emotions. There is nothing quite like leaving all one's real-world hardships far behind and lazing away the days and nights at sea. This is why many cruise on such ocean liners as P&O's Pacific Sky. Those who have already enjoyed shipboard life remember many different experiences. Those who have not, tend to dwell on negative aspects such as "But what if I get stuck with a bunch of people who I don't like?"

Pacific Sky features a Sky Cam (BridgeCam) that enables would-be seafarers to see at least one aspect of life aboard ship. Visit the Web site and click on Sky Cam to see the sites in port or at sea.

1. What functions might Sky Cam perform for potential customers?
2. Do you think it would be positive or not to locate additional cameras where people are located so potential customers can experience the shipboard activities?
3. What other services might be offered using a Web camera?
4. Why might the service be called Sky Cam? Might another name be more appropriate?

- Stewart Adam

Product line managers are often concerned with managing the length of their product lines. Product line length refers to the number of different products within a particular product line. A company may have several different product lines in its product mix. Some companies have very wide product mixes, that is, many different product lines. Others have narrow but long product lines. That is, they offer a few, focused product lines, but each line has a wide variety of product offerings. Let us look at some of the product line management decisions of companies. First, visit the web site of the company that is often used as an example of a diverse product mix: Procter & Gamble. Click on the link to P&G Products and explore the information on the five different product categories at this site. Then, let us look at the product lines of a few competitors. For example, shop the catalog at Gevalia.com and study their product mix. Now, let's compare the product mixes of these companies.

1. How many product lines does Procter & Gamble have in its product mix for the North American market? List their main product lines.

2. Compare the product mixes of P&G and Gevalia in terms of width, length, and consistency.

3. Using the P&G web site, give examples of a long and a short product line.

4. If Gevalia wanted to try a "downmarket stretch" of their coffee line (extending a line to lower price market), how would they do it? Give an example of a product that Gevalia could use to stretch their line downmarket.

- Praveen Aggarwal

It is important for marketers to understand that their consumers are usually buying more than just the physical attributes of the products they purchase. As Kotler has pointed out several times, when a customer buys a drill, he or she is really buying a hole! Too many businesses focus so much on the technological features of their product that they forget about the core benefit that the customer is seeking in a product. This is a sure-fire way to product failure. The seller gets excited about its "innovative" product features that elicit a collective yawn from consumers who don't see the benefit offered by the enhanced features. Here's a short exercise to see how marketing-minded you are. Visit the site of an unusual product. For this exercise, let's use Magnatherapybracelet.com. Now, based on your understanding of product levels, answer the following questions:

1. What do you think is the core benefit offered by the magnetic bracelet?

2. The "basic product" refers to the actual product that provides the core benefit while the expected product includes the set of attributes and conditions customers expect to see when they purchase the product. Based on your visit to the magnatherapy web site, what is the basic product and expected product offered by the seller?

3. The "augmented product" refers to additional, unexpected features of the product that go beyond the basic expectations from the product. While the web site currently does not seem to suggest any augmented product, what would you suggest the business include as part of an "augmented product?"

- Rajiv Vaidyanathan

Product is one of the important marketing mix variables. Typically, a marketer offers a range of products to its target consumers. The total group of products that a marketer makes available to its consumers constitutes its product mix. Product mix encompasses four dimensions-width, length, depth, and consistency. More specifically, product mix width refers to the number of different product lines a company carries. Product mix length refers to the total number of items a company carries within its product lines. Product mix depth pertains to the number of versions offered of each product in the line. Finally, product mix consistency regards how closely related the various product lines are in end use, production requirements, distribution channels, or some other way. These dimensions serve as tools for developing a marketer's product strategy. Namely, a marketer may increase its business by widening, lengthening, deepening, or changing the consistency of its product mix. It is important that marketers understand the relationships among all their products and manage the marketing mix carefully.

Take a look at the Web site of Breyers'. Click on the "All Natural," "Sherbet/Rainbow," "Homemade," "Frozen Yogurt," and "Viennetta" links on the left of Breyers' homepage. Identify the product mix of Breyers-find out how many product lines it has and determine the width, length, depth, and consistency of its product mix. After visiting these pages, answer the following questions:

1. What are the two general categories of products? Which category do Breyers' products fall into?

2. Would you consider Breyers' products convenience, shopping, specialty, or unsought products? Why?

3. Describe the width, length, depth, and consistency of Breyers' product mix.

- Chung-kue Hsu