The various brands in the optimal product line vs. The optimal single product

Gila E. Fruchter, Ariel Fligler

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this marketing-oriented era where manufacturers maximize profits through customer satisfaction, there is an increasing need to design a product line rather than a single product. By offering a product line, the manufacturer can customize his or her products to the needs of a variety of segments in order to maximize profits by satisfying more customers than a single product would. Recently, the authors introduced a genetic algorithm to solve this problem. An interesting product design research question is how the profile of an optimal product line differs from an optimal single product? To analyse this question we apply our method to a single product design problem. Surprizingly, we find that the profile of the optimal single product is the core product of the optimal product line. Furthermore, the various brands in the product line are slight variations of the single product solution. An important managerial implication of this property could be designing a core brand with a number of line extensions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)15-22
Number of pages8
JournalInnovative Marketing
Volume3
Issue number1
StatePublished - 2007

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Gila E. Fruchter, Ariel Fligler, 2007.

Keywords

  • Cannibalization
  • Genetic algorithms
  • Heuristics
  • Marketing
  • Product line design

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