Product Family

A group of related goods that are manufactured by a single company. Companies benefit from creating product families in that they can leverage the loyalty their existing customers feel toward an existing product to get them to buy additional, related products. Product families also allow companies to attract new customers to their brand by providing an array of products that are similar but meet slightly different needs. Customers benefit from product families because they can rely on their positive experience with an existing brand when choosing a new product.

For example, a backyard gardener might have been using the same pesticide for years to control the caterpillars that always try to eat his tomato plants. One year, he decides to try growing sugar snap peas for the first time and discovers that he needs a new product to control a disease, powdery mildew, that is affecting his crop. The company that produces the caterpillar pesticide has an entire family of products to help the home gardener successfully cultivate different crops, so when the gardener goes to the store to purchase a product for his new problem, he looks for one made by the same brand that he is already using. The gardener can shop quickly and get peace of mind by buying from a product family he already has experience with, and the gardening product company gains additional business from an existing customer.