The core product, the center of the product platform, answers the following questions: What's in it for the customer to adopt the behavior? What benefits will customers receive? What needs will the desired behavior satisfy? What problems will is solve? The core product is not the behaviors or accompanying goods and services you will be developing, providing, and/or promoting. It is the benefits your audience wants and expects to experience when they perform the behavior-- benefits they say are the most valuable to them (e.g., moderate physical activity will make me feel better, look better, and live longer). The great Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt was Known to have told his students, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!" And Charles Revson, of Revlon, also provided a memorable quote illustrating the difference between products features (our actual product) and product benefits (out core product):"In The factory we make cosmetics; in the store, we sell hope."
Decisions about the core product focus primarily on what potential benefit should be stressed. This process will include reviewing (from Step 5) audience perceptions (a) benefits from the desired behavior and (b) perceived costs of competing behaviors that the desired behavior when can help the target audience avoid. You may have even identified this core product when constructing your positioning statement (in Step 6).Decisions are then made regarding which of these should be emphasized in campaign. And keep in mind, the key benefit you should highlight is the benefit the target audience perceives for performing the behavior--not the benefit to your organization or agency