Mastering the 'Name Your Product Category' Game Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Category labels are not the same as company brand. Brands create unique relationships between customers and your particular business. Class labels, however, are a method to recognize a product's commonality with others of its kind. For instance, Tesla Motors marketplaces and maintains it’s distinctive "Tesla"brand, but the category label the business uses to introduce its products is "electric cars."Categories, like brands, issue in ways that are subtle and profound. New businesses are characterized by an early amount of doubt and confusion about significance and product use.

Mastering the 'Name Your Product Category' Game Case Study Solution

The industry of “cloud computing” began several decades ago under a different name such as “utility computing,” “time sharing” application service providers and software as a service. Meanwhile the classification labeling “smartphone” is omnipresent today, in late 1990, Samsung was once known as the product of that class, a camera phone that others called out by the name of PDA phone and Nokia called it as“gaming deck”.

Contrary to popular opinion in the company press, the first-mover advantage of entering a fresh marketplace quite early can be a disadvantage. In a nascent industry or sector, the debut of the dominant class label indicates the start stage of the ideal window of opportunity for entry.

Before the introduction of the class label that is dominant, most consumers are unwilling to commit, which frequently results in a hard time period for early-entry companies, who must try and convince customers to try their products. The ideal window for entry's end point is the debut of a dominant product design into the market; after that, firms need to conform to customers'expectations for the product category.

PUBLICATION DATE: January 01, 2015 PRODUCT #: SMR511-HCB-ENG

This is just an excerpt. This case is about SALES & MARKETING