16. Product decisions based on lifestyle and reasons for product diversification; Boston matrix.

Product - smth that satisfies the needs & wants of the customer (по её презентации)

* a tangible object or service that is mass produced or manufactured on a large scale;

* intangible - often services.

Product implies: variety, quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, service.

A lifestyle brand is a company that markets its products or services to embody the interests, attitudes, and opinions of a group or a culture. As individuals have different identities based on their personal experiences, choices or background, an organization must understand to whom it directs its brand. By operating off a lifestyle brand ideology, an organization's ultimate goal is to become a recognized social phenomenon.

Lifestyle marketing perspective recognizes that people group themselves into segments based on what they like to do and how they choose to spend their disposable income. Consumers often choose products, services and activities

over other because they are associated with a certain lifestyle. For this reason, lifestyle-marketing strategies attempt to position a product by fitting it into an existing pattern of consumption. Lifestyle characteristics have a great impact on the purchase behavior of the clusters. In a consumption environment, a person chooses a product or brand, which seems to possess a maximum possibility of the definition or elaboration of his life style identity.

Boston Matrix - helps the company allocate resources and is used as an analytical tool in brand marketing, product management, strategic management, and portfolio analysis.

*Cash cows - has high market share in a slow-growing industry. They typically generate cash in excess of the amount of cash needed to maintain the business. They are regarded as boring, in a mature market, yet corporations value owning them due to their cash-generating qualities. They are to be "milked" continuously with as little investment as possible, since such investment would be wasted in an industry with low growth.

*Dogs - low market share in a mature, slow-growing industry. These units typically generate barely enough cash to maintain the business's market share. Though owning a break-even unit provides the social benefit of providing jobs and possible synergies that assist other business units, from an accounting point of view such a unit is worthless, not generating cash for the company. They depress a profitable company's return on assets ratio, used by many investors to judge how well a company is. Dogs, it is thought, should be sold off.

*Question marks (also problem children) - low market share in a high-growth market. They are a starting point for most businesses. Have a potential to gain market share and become stars, and eventually cash cows when market growth slows. If question marks don't succeed in becoming a leader, then after years of cash consumption, they will degenerate into dogs when market growth declines. Question marks must be analyzed in order to determine whether they are worth the investment required to grow market share.

*Stars - high market share in a fast-growing industry. They are graduated question marks with a market- or niche-leading trajectory. Stars require high funding to fight competitors and maintain their growth rate. When industry growth slows, if they remain a niche leader or are amongst the market leaders, stars become cash cows; otherwise, they become dogs due to low relative market share.

SONY: Star (laptop, TV, playstation), cow (smart phone, projector, memory card), ?(watch, rolly), dog (robots, CD)