Syllabus: Pearson Edexcel GCSE Business
Module: Making Marketing Decisions
Lesson: 2.2.1 Product

Introduction

Without a compelling product, the rest of marketing doesn’t matter. This topic explores how businesses create products that customers actually want to buy – balancing what the product does, how it looks, and what it costs to make. It’s the foundation of the marketing mix and often the difference between business success and failure. Students will discover how products evolve throughout their lifecycle and the strategies businesses use to keep products relevant when sales start to decline. Understanding product decisions helps students see why some products thrive while others disappear, connecting classroom concepts to the brands and items they interact with every day.

Key Concepts

According to the Pearson Edexcel GCSE Business syllabus, the key concepts under Product include:

• The Design Mix:

  • Function: What the product should do and how well it performs its intended purpose
  • Aesthetics: How the product appeals to consumers’ senses (appearance, feel, smell)
  • Cost: How cost-effective the product is to manufacture while maintaining profitability
  • Balancing these three elements to meet the needs of different target markets

• The Product Life Cycle:

  • Introduction phase: Initial product launch with low sales and awareness
  • Growth phase: Increasing sales as customer awareness and acceptance grow
  • Maturity phase: Peak sales as the product becomes established in the market
  • Decline phase: Decreasing sales as the product loses popularity
  • Factors affecting the length of a product’s life cycle

• Extension Strategies:

  • Product differentiation: Making the product stand out from competitors
  • Price reduction: Lowering prices to maintain competitiveness
  • Rebranding: Refreshing the product’s image and packaging
  • Repositioning: Finding new markets or uses for the product
  • Increased marketing: Boosting promotional activities to stimulate sales

These concepts help students understand how businesses make strategic decisions about their products to maximize their appeal, longevity, and profitability in the marketplace.

Real-World Relevance

Product decisions shape the items students use and buy every day:

• Design Mix in Action:

  • The iPhone in students’ pockets represents specific design choices – Apple prioritizes premium aesthetics and advanced functionality over low cost, targeting consumers willing to pay more for perceived quality and status.
  • Meanwhile, Dacia cars succeed by doing the opposite – prioritizing function (reliable transportation) and low cost over aesthetics, appealing to practical buyers who just need a car that works.
  • Dyson vacuum cleaners show how emphasizing both function (powerful suction) and aesthetics (distinctive design) can justify higher costs when the value is clearly visible to consumers.

• Product Life Cycle Students Have Witnessed:

  • Many students have seen the DVD player’s entire life cycle – from exciting new technology in the late 1990s to obsolescence as streaming took over. This shows how external factors can accelerate a product’s journey through its life cycle.
  • Meanwhile, products like Coca-Cola have maintained an extended maturity phase for decades through consistent marketing – proving that good management can extend a product’s life.
  • The fidget spinner craze of 2017 demonstrates an extremely compressed life cycle – from must-have item to forgotten fad within months – a perfect example for teaching how some products can move through stages rapidly.

• Extension Strategies Students Recognize:

  • Cadbury keeps Dairy Milk interesting through product differentiation – introducing variations like Fruit & Nut, Whole Nut, and Oreo that students have likely tried themselves.
  • Lucozade transformed from a medicinal drink for sick people to a sports and energy drink for active consumers – a repositioning strategy that completely changed who buys the product.
  • Burberry’s rebranding from outdated to luxury fashion shows how refreshing a product’s image can attract entirely new customer segments.
  • Fairy Liquid’s “now washes twice as many dishes” demonstrates how functional improvements can reinvigorate mature products.

These examples connect theoretical concepts to products students encounter in their daily lives, making abstract ideas immediately tangible.

How It’s Assessed

In exams, students will typically encounter:

• Multiple-choice questions: Testing basic knowledge of design mix elements, product life cycle phases, and extension strategies.

• Short-answer questions: Explaining specific aspects of product decisions and their impact on businesses.

• Case study questions: Identifying product issues in business scenarios, explaining appropriate strategies, and analyzing potential outcomes.

• Extended response questions: Discussing different product strategies for specific business contexts, weighing advantages and disadvantages.

Students need to know specific product concepts, understand their business impact, and evaluate different product strategies. Command words to watch for include “identify,” “explain,” “analyze,” and “evaluate,” with higher marks for balanced arguments that consider both advantages and disadvantages of different approaches.

Enterprise Skills Integration

Understanding product decisions builds practical skills students can use beyond exams:

• Creativity and innovation: Analyzing the design mix develops the ability to think creatively about how products could be improved or developed – useful in any role involving development or improvement.

• Problem-solving: Examining extension strategies enhances the capability to identify solutions when products or services face challenges – applicable in virtually any workplace.

• Critical thinking: Evaluating the effectiveness of different product strategies in various market conditions develops analytical skills transferable to many contexts.

• Commercial awareness: Understanding how product decisions affect business performance fosters appreciation for market dynamics and consumer behavior.

• Research and analysis: Studying consumer preferences and competitor products develops the ability to gather and interpret information for decision-making.

These skills transfer well beyond business studies to any situation requiring innovation, problem-solving, and understanding of customer needs.

Careers Links

Knowledge of product decisions connects to numerous career paths:

• Product Development: Product Managers, Research and Development Specialists, and Innovation Consultants create and improve products to meet customer needs.

• Design: Product Designers, Industrial Designers, and User Experience (UX) Designers shape how products look, feel, and function.

• Brand Management: Brand Managers, Product Marketing Managers, and Category Managers oversee product positioning and marketing strategies.

• Market Research: Market Research Analysts, Consumer Insight Specialists, and Product Testers gather data about customer preferences and product performance.

• Retail Buying: Retail Buyers, Merchandisers, and Range Planners select products for retail businesses based on customer demand and market trends.

Understanding product management isn’t just for future product developers – it’s relevant to anyone who might need to create, improve, or select products or services in their career.

Teaching Notes

• Start with products students use daily – perhaps comparing smartphones at different price points to analyze how they balance function, aesthetics, and cost for different target markets.

• Use visual aids like graphs to illustrate the product life cycle, and have students plot real products at different stages. Which products in their lives are in decline? Which are growing?

• Try group activities where students develop extension strategies for products in the decline phase – perhaps physical music formats or landline phones. This fosters creativity and problem-solving.

• Create comparison exercises examining both successful and unsuccessful product decisions. Why did the iPod succeed when other MP3 players failed? Why did Google Glass flop when smartphones thrived?

• Watch for the misconception that all products follow the same life cycle pattern (ignoring variations in duration), or that expensive products always prioritize aesthetics over function (ignoring value perception).

• For extension, have students analyze how digital products differ from physical ones in their life cycles, or research how sustainability concerns are changing product design priorities.