Scribd
Upload
11 views2 pages

Product Life cycle

The document outlines the Product Life Cycle (PLC), which includes four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline, each requiring different marketing strategies. It also distinguishes between styles, fashions, and fads, emphasizing the importance of recognizing trends early. Additionally, it discusses specific marketing strategies for each PLC stage, highlighting the need for adaptation as market conditions change.

Uploaded by

dinailham2003
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
11 views2 pages

Product Life cycle

The document outlines the Product Life Cycle (PLC), which includes four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline, each requiring different marketing strategies. It also distinguishes between styles, fashions, and fads, emphasizing the importance of recognizing trends early. Additionally, it discusses specific marketing strategies for each PLC stage, highlighting the need for adaptation as market conditions change.

Uploaded by

dinailham2003
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Product Life-Cycle Marketing Strategies

A company’s positioning and differentiation strategy must change as its product, market, and
competitors change over the product life cycle (PLC). To say a product has a life cycle is to assert four
things:

1. Products have a limited life.

2. Product sales pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities, and
problems to the seller.

3. Profits rise and fall at different stages of the product life cycle.

4. Products require different marketing, financial, manufacturing, purchasing, and human resource
strategies in each life-cycle stage.

Product Life Cycles

Most product life cycles are portrayed as bell-shaped curves, typically divided into four stages:
introduction, growth, maturity, and decline55 (see Figure 12.5).

1. Introduction—A period of slow sales growth as the product is introduced in the market. Profits are
nonexis-tent because of the heavy expenses of product introduction.

2. Growth—A period of rapid market acceptance and substantial profit improvement.

3. Maturity—A slowdown in sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by most
potential buyers. Profits stabilize or decline because of increased competition.

4. Decline—Sales show a downward drift and profits erode.

We can use the PLC concept to analyze a product category (liquor), a product form (white liquor), a
product (vodka), or a brand (Absolut). Not all products exhibit a bell-shaped PLC.

Style, Fashion, and Fad Life Cycles

We need to distinguish three special categories of product life cycles: styles, fashions, and fads.
A style is a basic and distinctive mode of expression appearing in a field of human endeavor. A style
can last for generations and go in and out of vogue. A fashion is a currently accepted or popular style
in a given field. Fashions pass through four stages: distinctiveness, emulation, mass fashion, and
decline. The marketing winners are those who recognize fads early and leverage them into products
with staying power, as Crocs has tried to do.

Marketing Strategies: Introduction Stage and the Pioneer Advantage

Because it takes time to roll out a new product, work out technical problems, fill dealer pipelines,
and gain consumer acceptance, sales growth tends to be slow in the introduction stage. Companies
that plan to introduce a new product must decide when to do so. To be first can be reward-ing, but
risky and expensive. Tellis and Golder also identified five factorsunderpinning long-term market
leadership: vision of a mass market, persistence, relentless innovation, financial commitment, and
asset leverage. Other research has highlighted the role ofgenuine product innovation

Marketing Strategies: Growth Stage

The growth stage is marked by a rapid climb in sales. Early adopters like the product, and additional
consumersstart buying it. New competitors enter, attracted by the opportunities. They introduce
new product features and expand distribution. Prices stabilize or fall slightly, depending on how fast
demand increases. Firms must watch for a change to a decelerating rate of growth in order to
prepare new strategies. To sustain rapid market share growth now, the firm:

• improves product quality and adds new features and improved styling.

• adds new models and flanker products (of different sizes, flavors, and so forth) to protect
the main product.

• enters new market segments.

• increases its distribution coverage and enters new distribution channels.

• shifts from awareness and trial communications to preference and loyalty communications.

• lowers prices to attract the next layer of price-sensitive buyers.

Marketing Strategies: Maturity Stage

At some point, the rate of sales growth will slow, and the product will enter a stage of relative
maturity. The maturity stage divides into three phases: growth, stable, and decaying maturity. This
third phase poses the most challenges. The sales slowdown creates overcapacity in the industry,
which intensifies competition. Weaker competitors withdraw.

Marketing Strategies: Decline Stage

As sales and profits decline, some firms withdraw. Those remaining may reduce the number of
products they offer, exiting smaller segments and weaker trade channels, cutting marketing budgets,
and reducing prices further.

In a slow-growth economy, marketers must explore the upside of increasing investments, get closer
to customers, review budget allocations, put forth the most compelling value proposition, and fine-
tune brand and product offerings.

You might also like