As I sat drinking a Montieth's Summer Ale yesterday I thought about what had influenced me to buy a particular brand of beer. I recall when I first heard about the brand Monteith's in around 1986 while living in Greymouth but I have no idea when Summer Ale came along or how I heard about it. I suspect it was either word of mouth or the name caught my attention, I don't ever recall seeing advertisement for it and I don't even no what the rules are in this country for advertising alcohol.
So is the service the product on this occasion? I can't think of a time ever I wanted to give a brewery feedback on their product, if it wasn't what you wanted the competition is so fierce you would just move on to something you did like. I guess they do market research, I vaguely recall answering some questions for Speight's as a student so i could get two dozen of their product, but I suspect the only time you might complain about a beer was if you were in a hotel and you could complain to the bar itself.
In the case of beer the service is provided by the bar or the retail outlet, the beer is a component of the service but not the service in itself. Question is therefore in IT why we often thing the technology is the service, the technology is surely like the beer and enable another service.
