Definition of Marketing and Product

 In marketing, the term “product” is used with a wide concept that includes both material goods and services, which a business organization offers to their customers to fulfill their basic requirements. As this is the chief motive of each good or service, a consumer can easily substitute them with other product if the concerned person can get same level of benefit or sometimes, more than that (Jin, Yang, Poe and Huang 2018). However, products are not always sold to a customer for final consumption. Sometimes, they are sold as an intermediate product for further production and consequently, have become the capital items. For instance, a bus can be used as a final product that each consumer can consume or utilize, while a computer may be used as an intermediate good for further production.

  Under product, goods and services can be divided based on some basic characteristics, which is, products are tangible by nature while services are not (Baker 2016). For instance, cars, foods and clothes are tangible hence those all are fallen under the category of goods and treatment of a doctor or service in a restaurant is intangible; hence, those are considered under service.

To identify a product from the given case study, it is essential to understand about the different aspects of this with its related benefits. Products can be achieved in the form of service while it considers ideas of people or only the human being. For instance, various events like festivals and other games, cities can be referred as products. By consuming a product, a consumer can earn three types of benefits, which are core product, actual product and augmented product benefits (Wheelen, Hunger, Hoffman and Bamford 2017). Among these all, the chief kind of benefit is coming from the core product one, where customers can obtain this directly from the products, while the actual product benefit states about some characteristics and features of a product in addition with core product one. This can be distinguished based on brand value. Moreover, the augmented product benefits describes about the services obtained after sales of a product.

In this specified case study, the product, which is offered to the people of Nantes, is the free contemporary arts. After experiencing various geographical, emotional and physical instabilities, the arts and cultures of Nantes have departed drastically (Zhu 2017). However, after the great effort and ideas of the artistic director, Jean Blaise, also a cultural impresario, the countrt has started to experience their ancient arts and cultures with modern thoughts. Moreover, to provide core product benefits to their customers or citizens of Nantes, Blaise has offered free service for their programs. Moreover, the citizens have been obtained actual benefit of products from the Le Voyage a Nantes, a street show that can be offered a branding identity.

Different Characteristics of Goods and Services

In this specified case study, entire citizens of Nantes are considered as customers, who can buy the product, that is, contemporary art of the city (Souto 2015). However, a customer’s thinking differs with the one of others and hence it is essential to understand about the chief motivation of each customer, based on which, Blaise can attract them.  As they think that organization such arts is only the wastage of their tax, the needs to take major steps for influencing them positively.

The decision process of a customer controls buying motivation for a particular product (Pappas, Kourouthanassis, Giannakos and Lekakos 2017). Thus, to understand about the motivations of Nantais to consume contemporary arts, it is essential describe about the two chief decisions processes relating to customer’s buying decision, which can further implement in this case study.

In the first phase, the concept of complex buying behavior can be described, where large numbers of customers are involved and the purchase is remained expensive or infrequent. Sometimes customers through the product can express themselves. Hence, to consume a product, the concerned person follows some decision-making process among which the two most important steps are needs regarding a product and evaluation of alternatives (Terho et al. 2017). Need recognition is the initial stage of motivation, based on which, the customer can choose to consume a specific product. However, according to this criterion, a consumer initially considers about the importance of the product in their daily life. This recognition is further supported by the financial structure related to the product. Secondly, the consumer tries to find out some alternative products that can meet their needs. In this context, the concerned person can take information from various sources like commercial one (So, King, Sparks and Wang 2016). After piling up information regarding this product, a consumer can take final decision that whether the product should be consumed or not. Hence, those two concepts under complex buying behavior, a consumer can be motivated to consume a product or not.

According to the case study, customers are not interested to pay money for consuming this contemporary art because initially the city has not experienced such art in their city and for this; they need to understand about the necessity of contemporary art in their city along with evaluation of alternatives of this art (Ismulyaty and Lestari 2017). By understanding those processes, Nantes can enhance their customer motivation. Hence, initially, the city offers free events for their customers in various public places to motivate them about the understanding of arts and cultures. As the chief focus Nantes is to capture the entire citizens as their customer, this step is essential. In the next step, for the citizens of this specified city is to understand about the evaluation of alternatives (Robson et al. 2016). The city has earned huge importance from this program as it helps to reduce the unemployment of this country and also helps to become well-known to its other neighbor countries. By gather large amount of economic profit, the city has proved that art and culture can take part to the development process of a country. Hence, this product does not have any close alternatives, which has helped the country to experience such economic success (Jeon and Jeong 2017). Thus, this step can motive people to consume contemporary art. After analyzing those factors, the people of this city can consider this product as an important one and consequently, can motivate themselves and others to consume this, where the public sector can play an important role too for encouraging people by providing various subsidies.

Identifying the Product in the Case Study

The concept of circular follow of income can be described with a simple model by assuming that a particular economy has only two sectors, for instance, a firm and a household. Firm produces output with the help of four inputs that are land, capital labor and organization. Household provides those inputs and earn from those factors in the form of rent, interest, wage and profit which is called factors payments and by this income, the member of this household can purchase product of the firm. On the opposite site, the firm, by selling its output to the people of household, can earn revenue by which it can further hire inputs of the production. Hence, form those statements, it can be realized that each economic activity are interrelated with each other and those activities imply the flow of money, which is moving from one sector to another by a circular way (Campoy-Muñoz, Cardenete and Delgado 2017). If the complex model of the circular flow of income is taken under consideration, then it can be seen that money are injected and withdrawn simultaneously. Money is withdrawn from the circle in the form of net savings, net taxes and import expenditure. On the contrary, money is injected in the economy in the form of investment, government expenditure and export expenditure. Hence, after injection and withdrawal, the entire flow of income has remained same. Here, the most important characteristic of circular flow of income is that each economic unit is linked with each other.

With the help of the concept of circular flow of money, the free public art event on Nantes’ local economy can be described. The municipal government of this city has provided huge financial support. The chief source of the financial support of this government is the tax, paid by the citizens. Hence, initially, they have worried about the activities of this contemporary art as they have though that the government have wasted those money.  However, after one year, it can be seen that those arts programs are generating revenue and also are offering employment opportunities. Hence, on the one side, the government is spending money or tax to promote this kind of art in the city and on the opposite, those arts are offering huge employment and consequently, those employed people have become able to pay tax to the government (Murray, Skene and Haynes 2017). Moreover, based on this cultural event, the government has increased its expenditure on tourism sectors while for those events; people are visiting this place significantly. Moreover, employment generation has helped the economy to develop further as the country’s national income has become stronger compare to that of before. Traders and shopkeepers are also trying to utilize quirky and humorous signs of those artists by which their sells of products can be increased and for this, they are offering huge amount to those artists. Hence, from those consequences, it can be stated that the economy is facing a circular flow of money, where entire amount of flowed money has remained almost same. Money is withdrawn from citizens in the form of tax while the government is injecting this money within the economy in the form of investment.

Customer Motivation and Decision Process

Under the mixed economy system, the economy has experienced the presence of both public sectors and private sectors and interdependency between them. However, to operate the business activities of private sector, the government has adopted some functions to control (Fixler, Johnson, Craig and Furlong 2017). Those functions can be explained to understand deeply the role of public sector and its importance in the economy over the private one. Firstly, the government has set some legal frameworks for controlling duties and rights of each individual. Thorough implementing laws and policies and other regulations, the government can protect the economy from labor exploitation, food safety protection of consumer and environment (Arvidson 2017). Each private business entity is needed to follow those rules and regulations of the government. Secondly, through providing public services, the government can maintain economic welfare, which cannot be found in capitalist economy. Public transport, public hospital and all other facilities provided by this entity are fallen under this category (Musacchio, Lazzarini and Aguilera 2015). Thirdly, the government of each country can promote any business organizations or the entire business sector by providing financial support in the form of subsidy or by lowering the rate of interest to take loan for investing any particular product. The government can reduce the amount of tax on production if the product becomes essential for the country. Lastly, by purchasing products from private sectors, the public sector has provided huge amount of revenue to them. Public organizations maintain direct business relationship with private organizations. Hence, by performing in business sector, the public sector under mixed economy has played a vital role.

According to the case study, Nantes has experienced a mixed economy structure, where public sector and private sector together have taken part in various business activities. For instance, at the beginning, a private artistic director along with the mayor of this city has tried to promote this contemporary art. Moreover, the municipal body has provided financial support and the public work company of this city have started to collaborate with private artists. Hence, the public sector has performed almost its entire role under this economic structure. Initially, it has provided legal protections and has provided permissions to perform those tasks related to contemporary arts in any space of the city. As a consequent, this art has been performed in some important places, for instance, public areas and bridge. Moreover, the municipal government has provided financial support to promote this activity along with tourism sectors so that the city can experience huge economic profit. In addition to this, the public company has started to collaborate with other artists to achieve more success through an efficient way. For instance, the government is trying to enhance the interest of common people by offering free services at the initial stage o promotion. Hence, by adopting this strategy, the government can increase the economic welfare of the country through offering huge employment opportunity, which in turn has helped the city earn more national income.

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