Industrial Products of Marketing 2
Next articles from previous Industrial product of marketing one.
The example of the alcoholic drink quoted above illustrates this. It shows how a relative freedom from the crude needs opens the way for consumer indulgence in subtle variations on old themes. It is no accident that bread, for instance, is now merchandised in many forms that are far from `essential` -a reason, no doubt, for the growth of the profitable business in breakfast cereals, and the trade in the various wheat products.
The current preoccupation with health, slimming and the internal functioning of the body (subjective factors) is a platform on which has been built a thriving business in variations on the bread theme fortified bread, reduced-starch-content bread, bread packaged as virtually ready-made dry toast, bread guaranteed to contain the `wheat germ`, and numerous other appeals to consumers preoccupied with ideas of pseudo-scientific eating. There is even the breakfast cereal whose selling platform emphasizes its laxative effect.
There is fruitful material here for the social psychologist to research into, for example, the reasons for the pursuit of external aids to internal well-being, and the elevation of science, technology, and medicine into modern equivalents of the oracle of classical times. But we are here concerned only with the fact that this situation provides the marketing function in business with a rich opportunity for product variation -or, as it is called, new product development.