When your products are sold through a variety of retail channels, you want to have a certain level of control over how your products are marketed and presented to the final consumer. One way to do this is to define a minimum advertised price (MAP).

This practice is perhaps best exemplified by Apple. No matter where you go to buy an iPod, you’ll find that the price is mostly the same. It very rarely varies by more than a few dollars. This is because Apple has define a very precise MAP for every product.

By doing this, Apple is able to maintain a certain public image that its products are of premium quality. If retailers were allowed to market the iPod for half the price, for example, this could result in a perceived sense of diminished value for the product. Apple goes further than most companies in this regard, though.

For many others, while there is a MAP in place, retailers are still allowed to sell the product for less. They just can’t openly advertise that price until the customer explicitly requests the actual price. This practice certainly has its pros and cons, but it is a strategy that you may want to try in order to gain a greater level of branding and marketing control over your product line.