What are the benefits and drawbacks (if any) to having a physical “product”?

Public health social marketing programs, by their nature, often include some sort of physical product. Having a tangible “product” can make strategic and tactical development and planning more closely match commercial marketing practice. Is this necessarily a good thing? Conventional wisdom suggests that the closer social marketing can come to its commercial roots, the greater the chances are for success; however, there may be drawbacks as well. The presence of a “product” facilitates the adoption of commercial success measures, like sales revenues, that can overpower social objectives. How can (and should)

programs balance these two measures?