As you said, the superposition principle allows to add waves.
But superposition holds only for linear media, when the response $R$ of the medium to the driving force $F$ is linear with the force, e.g. $R=\alpha F$ with $\alpha$ a proportionality constant.
This is the case for most of optical/electromagnetic phenomena (with $R$ the polarization and $F$ the driving electric field), as well as in acoustic.
However, for sufficiently large driving forces, the response is generally not linear anymore so that the response takes a form $R=\alpha F+\beta F^2$.
The reason one needs large driving force is that usually $\beta<<\alpha$ and that also explains why we are rarely observing nonlinear effects in everyday life.
Now if F is the sum of two separate excitation $F=F_1+F_2$, the response will be
$R=\alpha F_1+\alpha F_2+\beta F_1^2+\beta F_2^2+2\beta F_1F_2$.
Here you are: the nonlinearity creates a response that is the multiplication of two functions. Note that the superposition principle is apparent only for the term of the 1st power of $F_{1,2}$, but that the cross term $2\beta F_1F_2$ invalidates the superposition principle for the overall result.
In the case of harmonic waves, the square term effectively creates a constant response as well as a component at twice the frequency. This can be see with the trigonometric relation $\cos^2(\omega t)=\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\cos(2\omega t)$.
In optics, this property allows the generation of new colors. For example the usual green laser pointers are made of a first infrared laser at a wavelength of 1064nm that passes through a nonlinear crystal that double its frequency, hence dividing its wavelength by two, sot that the output is light at 532nm which is green.
On the other hand the cross term $F_1F_2$ will create frequencies that are the sum and the difference of the frequencies of two possible monochromatic waves interacting in a nonlinear medium.
Finally, for even higher intensity, a third order term in the previous response becomes non-negligible, giving rise to another rich variety of phenomena.
A list of effects are described in the following wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_optics