What term is used for the ability of a product or service to perform as expected?

A value proposition in marketing is a concise statement of the benefits that a company is delivering to customers who buy its products or services. It serves as a declaration of intent, both inside the company and in the marketplace.

The term value proposition is believed to have first appeared in a McKinsey & Co. industry research paper in 1988, which defined it as "a clear, simple statement of the benefits, both tangible and intangible, that the company will provide, along with the approximate price it will charge each customer segment for those benefits."

• A company's value proposition tells a customer the number one reason why a product or service is best suited for that particular customer.
• A value proposition should be communicated to customers directly, either via the company's website or other marketing or advertising materials.
• Value propositions can follow different formats, as long as they are "on brand," unique, and specific to the company in question.
• A successful value proposition should be persuasive and help turn a prospect into a paying customer.

A value proposition stands as a promise by a company to a customer or market segment. The proposition is an easy-to-understand reason why a customer should buy a product or service from that particular business. A value proposition should clearly explain how a product fills a need, communicate the specifics of its added benefit, and state the reason why it's better than similar products on the market. The ideal value proposition is to-the-point and appeals to a customer's strongest decision-making drivers.

Companies use this statement to target customers who will benefit most from using the company's products, and this helps maintain a company's economic moat. An economic moat is a competitive advantage. The moat analogy—coined by super-investor Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway—states that the wider the moat, the bigger and more resilient the firm is to competition.

A great value proposition demonstrates what a brand has to offer a customer that no other competitor has and how a service or product fulfills a need that no other company is able to fill.

A company's value proposition communicates the number one reason why a product or service is best suited for a customer segment. Therefore, it should always be displayed prominently on a company's website and in other consumer touch points. It also must be intuitive, so that a customer can read or hear the value proposition and understand the delivered value without needing further explanation.

Value propositions that stand out tend to make use of a particular structure. A successful value proposition typically has a strong, clear headline that communicates the delivered benefit to the consumer. The headline should be a single memorable sentence, phrase, or even a tagline. It frequently incorporates catchy slogans that become part of successful advertising campaigns.

Often a subheadline will be provided underneath the main headline, expanding on the explanation of the delivered value and giving a specific example of why the product or service is superior to others the consumer has in mind. The subheading can be a short paragraph and is typically between two and three sentences long. The subheading is a way to highlight the key features or benefits of the products and often benefits from the inclusion of bullet points or another means of highlighting standout details.

This kind of structure allows consumers to scan the value proposition quickly and pick up on product features. Added visuals increase the ease of communication between business and consumer. In order to craft a strong value proposition, companies will often conduct market research to determine which messages resonate the best with their customers.

Value propositions can follow different formats as long as they are unique to the company and to the consumers the company services. All effective value propositions are easy to understand and demonstrate specific results for a customer using a product or service. They differentiate a product or service from any competition, avoid overused marketing buzzwords, and communicate value within a short amount of time.

For a value proposition to effectively turn a prospect into a paying customer, it should clearly identify who the customers are, what their main problems are, and how the company's product or service is the ideal solution to help them solve their problem.

A value proposition is meant to convince stakeholders, investors, or customers that a company or its products or services are worthwhile. If the value proposition is weak or unconvincing it may be difficult to attract investment and consumer demand.

An employee value proposition (EVP) applies to the job market. Here, a company that is hiring will try to frame itself as a good place to work, offering not only monetary compensation but also a range of benefits, perks, and a productive environment. In return, the job candidate will need to convince the hiring company that they have the appropriate skills, experience, demeanor, and ambition to succeed.

If a company cannot convince others that it has value or that its products or services or valuable, it will lose profitability and access to capital and may ultimately go out of business.

A product is a bundle of attributes (features, functions, benefits, and uses) that a person receives in an exchange. In essence, the term “product” refers to anything offered by a firm to provide customer satisfaction, tangible or intangible. Thus, a product may be an idea (recycling) , a physical good (a pair of jeans), a service (banking), or any combination of the three.

Broadly speaking, products fall into one of two categories: consumer products and business products (also called industrial products and B2B products). Consumer products are purchased by the final consumer. Business products are purchased by other industries or firms and can be classified as production goods—i.e., raw materials or component parts used in the production of the final product—or support goods—such as machinery, fixed equipment, software systems, and tools that assist in the production process. Some products, like computers, for instance, may be both consumer products and business products, depending on who purchases and uses them.

The product fills an important role in the marketing mix because it is the core of the exchange. Does the product provide the features, functions, benefits, and uses that the target customer expects and desires? Throughout our discussion of product we will focus on the target customer. Often companies become excited about their capabilities, technologies, and ideas and forget the perspective of the customer. This leads to investments in product enhancements or new products that don’t provide value to the customer—and, as a result, are unsuccessful.

Four Levels of the Product

There are four levels of a product (shown in the figure below): core, tangible, augmented, and promised. Each is important to understand in order to address the customer needs and offer the customer a complete experience.

The Core Product

The core product satisfies the most basic need of the customer. For example, a consumer who purchases a healthy snack bar may be seeking health, convenience, or simply hunger relief. A student who buys low-priced, sturdy sneakers may just be seeking footwear. A student on a tight budget who buys top-of-the-line sneakers might be hoping to achieve status. Or, the student might be seeking a sense of freedom by splurging on an item that represents a true sense of style, even though he can’t really afford it. Footwear, status, and freedom are all legitimate core products. The core product is complex because it is so individualized, and, often, vague. The marketer must have a strong understanding of the target customer (and the different segments of target customers) in order to accurately identify the core product.

The Tangible Product

Once the core product has been identified, the tangible product becomes important. Tangible means “perceptible by touch,” so the tangible aspects of a product are those that can be touched and held. This idea can be expanded to also include the characteristics of the product that directly touch the buyer in the buying decision. These are the product elements that the customer will use to evaluate and make choices: the product features, quality level, brand name, styling, and packaging. Every product contains these components to a greater or lesser extent, and they are what the consumer uses when evaluating alternatives.

The importance of each aspect of the tangible product will vary across products, situations, and individuals. For example, at age twenty, a consumer might choose a particular brand of new car (core product=transportation) based on features such as gas mileage, styling, and price (choice=Toyota Yaris); at age forty-five, the core product remains the same, while the tangible components such as quality level, power, features, and brand prestige become important (choice=Audi A6).

The Augmented Product

Every product is backed up by a host of supporting services. The augmented product includes the tangible product and all of the services that support it. Often, the buyer expects these services and would reject the tangible product if they were not available. For example, if you shop at a department store, you are likely focused on a core and tangible product that centers on the merchandise, but you will still expect the store to have restrooms, escalators, and elevators. Dow Chemical has earned a reputation as a company that will bend over backward in order to service an account. It means that a Dow sales representative will visit a troubled farmer after hours in order to solve a serious problem. This extra service is an integral part of the augmented product and a key to their success.

When the tangible product is a service, there is still an augmented product that includes support services. Westin hotels offer hotel nights with a specific set of features as their tangible product. The augmented product also includes dry cleaning services, concierge services, and shuttle services, among others.

In a world with many strong competitors and few unique products, the augmented product is gaining ground, since it creates additional opportunities to differentiate the product from competitive offerings.

The Promised Product

The outer ring of the product is referred to as the promised product. Every product has an implied promise, which is a characteristic that is attached to the product over time. The promised product is the long-term result that the customer hopes to achieve by selecting the product. The promised product may be financial—the resale value of a car, home, or property, for example—but it is often more aspirational. The customer hopes to be healthier, happier, more productive, more successful, or enjoy greater status.

Like the core product, the promised product is highly personal. Generally, marketers find that there will be groupings of customers seeking a similar promise but that there is not a single promised product across all customers.

Can the core product and the promised product be the same thing? Yes, they can, but often the the core product is more focused on the immediate need and the promised product has a longer-term element.

Let’s compare two different examples of the same purchase to understand how the product levels might change for different customers.

In the first case, the customer’s impetus to buy is transportation, so that is the core product. In the second case, the purchase is more aspirational and less concrete, so the core product and the promised product are quite similar.

For a marketer, the most important element is to have a holistic view of the product. If I believe that I’m simply selling airline tickets, then I fail to provide the full product offering that will satisfy either of my customers in the example above. And of course, it is always key to truly understand the motivation and perspective of the target customer.