Market Plan Exercise

Chapter 8 discusses the challenges and processes marketers face in creating the product. For this exercise, let’s consider how challenging this can be – even for a company with tremendous resources.

Go to the Proctor & Gamble Website (http:wwwpg.com) and click on OUR BRANDS and navigate to the CREST site. Look over the information about Crest Products then answer these questions (consider that these are the questions P & G must answer when conducting market planning for the Crest Product line):

1. Crest lists several product innovations (these include whitestrips, Deep Cleaning, etc). How would you classify these products based on the discussion in chapter 8 (see TYPES OF INNOVATIONS) – Be sure to state what lead you to classify each product innovation.

2. Pick anyone of the products and consider the process that P& G likely went through when initially developing that product. Give an example of how each of the steps (see table 8.4) might have been used for development of that product – be specific.

3. For this same product, now consider what stage of the adoption process you believe that the product occupies for MOST consumers? What leads you to that conclusion?

4. Why is knowledge of the adoption process important in marketing planning? How could P & G use this knowledge to move this particular product along the adoption curve?