Soft Drinks and Smartphone Apps Product Categories Introduction

Product categories allow marketers to classify products into meaningful categories that assist them in deciding on the appropriate strategies and methods that will assist them in promoting a particular product. Product categories are the primary method for grouping products that have similar features. Each category will have a distinct marketing strategy and even if the target market might be similar. This is because each category will be geared towards a different aspect of an individual's life. The two categories we are discussing are soft drinks and smartphone apps. These two categories will have different marketing strategies because they target different aspects of the consumers’ needs and wants. Understanding the product category for a brand is vital for marketing because each category will require a different marketing approach. There are glaring differences between the two categories especially because one is considered to be mature and the other is still growing. Therefore, there will be differences in pricing, advertising, and distribution methods applied to the two categories.

Market Differences Regarding Consumers and Competitors

For the soft drink category,...

This has nothing to do with the taste of the particular drink, but rather due to the subtle marketing that accompanies the soft drink. Competition in the category might be fierce since each brand is fighting to increase its market share. However, the most effective method for reaching out to consumers is by calibrating every aspect of marketing a particular brand in order to create an identity around the product. This ensures that an individual is able to identify with a particular brand and will, in turn, ignore the other brands.
However, for the smartphone apps category, it is very different. Consumers will only install an app that they feel will make their life easier in a particular manner (Wang, Xiang, Law, & Ki, 2016). Considering that there are numerous options out, smartphone app marketing has to be tied to how the particular app will be useful to the consumer. Smartphone app consumers need to test out the application to determine its fit in their life. Therefore, offering free versions of the app is one of the ways to allow consumers to test a particular app. Since there are numerous apps attracting consumers is not an easy task. Smartphone…