Final Customer Buying from the Product Producer

Acquire Steps: Acquire steps include all activities the customer completes preceding the use or the consumption of the product. These steps include the customer's efforts needed for evaluation and acquisition of the product.

2. Emotional: Segment customers according to the personal emotional needs of the segment

B. Needs to avoid sources of anxiety

1. Risks in relationship: The customer segment needs reassurance it can trust

Company Capability: Company capability that crosses all products
Reliability Leader: The company can be counted on to lead the industry in major aspects of Reliability – Segment interested in being assured that:

Company will maintain consistent presence in the market

No. SIC Year Note
1 2032 1989 Beech-Nut's only products are baby juice, baby cereals and baby food in jars.
2 3519 1993 After being unable to break into foreign markets, Cummins and others have joined joint ventures with foreign truck manufacturers to jointly develop products to meet new environmental standards including: Mercedes with Detroit Diesel, Scania, Teco, & Komasu with Cummins.
3 3571 2003 IBM says the models it will roll out are more reliable, perform better on complicated computing tasks and allow greater use of Linux. IBM also has an advantage in that in has a near-monopoly on mainframes, having driven makers of IBM clones out of the market.
4 3699 2004 With major video games today often costing $30 million to produce and market, publisher Activision can't leave much to chance. Its use of customer input throughout its game development process helps it avoid risks. Its sales recently rose 34%.
5 3711 1991 BMW ads in the 1980s emphasized yuppie gratification. Now, ads stress quality and value in the product.
6 3711 2004 BMW's cars retain more of their value (54%) than do those of its luxury competitors.
7 4213 2003 Yellow Corp. (a trucking firm) bought Roadway and has stated that "other industries have dual-branding strategies too. We could come up with a strategy that focuses one brand on one set of customers and the other on another. Our mantra for the first year will be 'no change for the customer, no change to basic operations.' We want to keep our service levels up and stay focused on the customer. Scale matters in our business. At the end of the day, you're going to have four or five major players. This [acquisition] makes us…No. 3…behind FedEx and UPS."
8 5812 1997 McDonald's will give away miniature versions of Beanie Babies with the purchase of happy meals. Plans call for participating restaurants to give away 2 million dolls per week until 5/15 making a total of 10 million.
9 7372 1992 WordPerfect ad promises that "as long as you choose WP, there are no wrong choices" a message that assures customers they won't have the waste of getting an obsolete product and changing later.

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