Part I. Commodity market Unit I. Products a. Starting point
Where is the term ‘product’ derived from?
Is a product only a physical object?
Can a person be referred to as a product?
Working with words
I. Study the table and think of the Russian equivalents
1. Gross national product (GNP)
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the annual total value of goods produced, and services provided, in a country |
2. End (finished) product
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the final product of a manufacturing process |
3. By-product
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a substance produced during the making of something else |
II. Make up sentences using the words from the table above
Reading
I. Before reading the text fill in the first two columns of the KWL Chart about products.
II. Read the text using the dictionary. Pay attention to the words in bold. After reading the text fill in the third column of the KWL Chart.
Kwl Chart
Know |
Want |
Learnt |
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Products
Linguistically, the word commodity came into use in English in the 15th century, derived from the French word ‘commodité’, similar in meaning to convenience in terms of quality or services. The Latin root meaning is ‘commoditas’, referring to the appropriate measure of something; a fitting state, time or condition; a good quality; efficaciousness or propriety; and advantage, or benefit.
T
he
verb ‘produce’ is from the Latin prōdūce(re),
(to) lead or bring forth. The noun ‘product’ (prod’əkt
or-ukt) is ‘a thing produced by labor or effort’. Since 1575, the
word ‘product’ has been referred to anything produced. Since
1695, the word has been referred to ‘a
thing or things produced’. The commercial
meaning of ‘product’ was first used by political economist Adam
Smith.
In business a product is a good or service which can be bought and sold. In marketing a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want. In retailing, products are called merchandise. In manufacturing, products are purchased as raw materials, oil, metals and sold as finished goods. Commodities are usually raw materials such as metals and agricultural products.
In general usage, product may refer to a single item or unit, a group of equivalent products, a grouping of goods or services, or an industrial classification for the goods or services.
‘Product’ is defined at its broadest level. Sometimes known as the ‘extended product’, this definition considers the product as the total sum of marketing effort. It is important not to restrict the view of a product to one of a physical object. It is necessary to include ‘service’ in any definition of the product.
In fact at the beginning of the 21st century in most Western economies services made up most of the gross domestic product. All products have some service element if only after sales service. Likewise most services have some tangible or ‘product’ component. Today when customers make a purchase it is often a mixture of product or service components.
A holiday is a product in the leisure market and insurance policy is a product in the securities and investment market. To the consumer the product is a satisfaction. Although a washing machine is a physical object, the real product features in terms of customer satisfaction are labour- and time-saving. A frozen ready-prepared meal comprises physical ingredients; but the satisfaction is convenience. To an industrial buyer, the main feature of a product may be speed of delivery or technical support.
Sometimes a ‘product’ may be a person. For example, political candidates, film stars, ‘pop’ stars and international sports personalities are marketed in a similar way to product marketing.
A good or commodity is any object or service that increases utility, directly or indirectly. A good that cannot be used by consumers directly, such as an office building or capital equipment, can be referred to as a good as an indirect source of utility through resale value or as a source of income.
Goods can refer to the materials and components used to make products. Here are some examples of these different types of goods:
consumer goods that last a long time, such as cars and washing machines, are consumer durables;
consumer goods such as food products that are sold quickly are fast-moving consumer goods, or FMCG.
A company usually gives a brand to its products so they can be easily recognized. This may be the name of the company itself: the make of the product. For products like cars, you refer to the make and model, the particular type of car, for example, the Ford (make) Ka (model).
Brand awareness or brand recognition is how much people recognize a brand. The ideas people have about a brand is its brand image. Many companies have a brand manager. Branding is creating brands and keeping them in customer’s minds through advertising, packaging, etc. A brand should have a clear brand identity so that people think of it in a particular way in relation to other brands. A product with the retailer’s own name on it is an own-brand product (BrE) or own-label product (AmE). Products that are not branded those that do not have a brand name, are generic products or generics.