PRODUCT

CHAPTER 7
PRODUCT LIFE-CYCLE MARKETING STRATEGIES

• A company’s positioning and differentiation strategy must change as the 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-cycle curves are portrayed as bell-shaped (see Figure 11.4). This curve is
typically divided into four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.

• 1. Introduction—A period of slow sales growth as the product is introduced in the market.
Profits are nonexistent 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.

• Not all products exhibit a bell-shaped PLC.

• Three common alternate patterns are shown in Figure 11.5.

• Figure 11.5(a) shows a growth-slump-maturity pattern, characteristic of small

kitchen appliances, for example, such as handheld mixers and bread makers.
Sales grow rapidly when the product is first introduced and then fall to a
“petrified (scared)” level sustained by late adopters buying the product for
the first time and early adopters replacing it.
• The cycle-recycle pattern in Figure 11.5(b) often describes the sales of new
drugs. The pharmaceutical company aggressively promotes its new drug,
producing the first cycle. Later, sales start declining, and another promotion
push produces a second cycle (usually of smaller magnitude and duration).

• Another common pattern is the scalloped PLC in Figure 11.5(c). Here, sales
pass through a succession of life cycles based on the discovery of new-
product characteristics, uses, or users. Sales of nylon have shown a scalloped
pattern because of the many new uses—parachutes, hosiery, shirts,
carpeting, boat sails, automobile tires—discovered over time.
STYLE, FASHION, AND FAD LIFE CYCLES

• We need to distinguish three special categories of product life cycles—styles,

fashions, and fads ( Figure 11.6).

• A style is a basic and distinctive mode of expression appearing in a field of human

endeavor. Styles appear in homes (colonial, ranch, Cape Cod), clothing (formal,
business casual, sporty), and art (realistic, surrealistic, abstract). 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 length of a fashion cycle is hard to predict.

• One view is that fashions end because they represent a purchase compromise, and
consumers soon start looking for the missing attributes.

• For example, as automobiles become smaller, they become less comfortable, and then a
growing number of buyers start wanting larger cars.

• Another explanation is that too many consumers adopt the fashion, thus turning others away.

• Still another is that the length of a particular fashion cycle depends on the extent to which
the fashion meets a genuine need, is consistent with other trends in the society, satisfies
societal norms and values, and keeps within technological limits as it develops.
• Fads are fashions that come quickly into public view, are adopted with great zeal, peak early,
and decline very fast.

• Their acceptance cycle is short, and they tend to attract only a limited following who are
searching for excitement or want to distinguish themselves from others.

• Fads fail to survive because they don’t normally satisfy a strong need.

• The marketing winners are those who recognize fads early and leverage them into products
with staying power.
MARKETING STRATEGIES: INTRODUCTION STAGE AND
THE PIONEER ADVANTAGE

• Because it takes time to roll out a new product, work out the technical problems, fill dealer
pipelines, and gain consumer acceptance, sales growth tends to be slow in the introduction
stage. Profits are negative or low, and promotional expenditures are at their highest ratio to
sales because of the need to ,
• (1) inform potential consumers,
• (2) induce product trial, and
• (3) secure distribution in retail outlets.
• Firms focus on buyers who are the most ready to buy. Prices tend to be higher because costs
are high. Companies that plan to introduce a new product must decide when to enter the
market. To be first can be rewarding, but risky and expensive. To come in later makes sense if
the firm can bring superior technology, quality, or brand strength to create a market
advantage. Speeding up innovation time is essential in an age of shortening product life
cycles.
MARKETING STRATEGIES: GROWTH STAGE

• The growth stage is marked by a rapid climb in sales. Early adopters like the product and additional
consumers start 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. Companies maintain promotional expenditures or raise them slightly, to meet competition
and continue to educate the market. Sales rise much faster than promotional expenditures, causing a
welcome decline in the promotion–sales ratio. Profits increase as promotion costs are spread over a
larger volume, and unit manufacturing costs fall faster than price declines, owing to the producer-
learning effect. 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.

• By spending money on product improvement, promotion, and distribution, the firm can
capture a dominant position. It trades off maximum current profit for high market share and
the hope of even greater profits in the next stage.
MARKETING STRATEGIES: MATURITY STAGE

• At some point, the rate of sales growth will slow, and the product will enter a stage of relative
maturity. Most products are in this stage of the life cycle, which normally lasts longer than
the preceding ones. The maturity stage divides into three phases: growth, stable, and
decaying maturity. In the first, sales growth starts to slow. There are no new distribution
channels to fill. New competitive forces emerge. In the second phase, sales per capita flatten
because of market saturation. Most potential consumers have tried the product, and future
sales depend on population growth and replacement demand. In the third phase, decaying
maturity, the absolute level of sales starts to decline, and customers begin switching to other
products.
• This third phase poses the most challenges. The sales slowdown creates overcapacity in the
industry, which intensifies competition. Weaker competitors withdraw. A few giants
dominate—perhaps a quality leader, a service leader, and a cost leader—and profit mainly
through high volume and lower costs. Surrounding them is a multitude of market nichers,
including market specialists, product specialists, and customizing firms.
• Some companies abandon weaker products to concentrate on new and more profitable ones.
Yet they may be ignoring the high potential many mature markets and old products still have.
Industries widely thought to be mature—autos, motorcycles, television, watches, cameras—
were proved otherwise by the Japanese, who found ways to offer customers new value.
Three ways to change the course for a brand are market, product, and marketing program
modifications.
• MARKET MODIFICATION A company might try to expand the market for its mature brand by working
with the two factors that make up sales volume: Volume = number of brand users × usage rate per user,
but may also be matched by competitors.

• PRODUCT MODIFICATION Managers also try to stimulate sales by improving quality, features, or style.
Quality improvement increases functional performance by launching a “new and improved” product.
Feature improvement adds size, weight, materials, supplements, and accessories that expand the
product’s performance, versatility, safety, or convenience. Style improvement increases the product’s
esthetic appeal. Any of these can attract consumer attention.

• MARKETING PROGRAM MODIFICATION Finally, brand managers might also try to stimulate sales by
modifying nonproduct elements—price, distribution, and communications in particular. They should
assess the likely success of any changes in terms of effects on new and existing customers.
MARKETING STRATEGIES: DECLINE STAGE

• Sales decline for a number of reasons, including technological advances, shifts in consumer
tastes, and increased domestic and foreign competition. All can lead to overcapacity,
increased price cutting, and profit erosion. The decline might be slow, as for sewing machines
and newspapers, or rapid, as for 5.25 floppy disks and eight-track cartridges. Sales may
plunge to zero or petrify at a low level. These structural changes are different from a short-
term decline resulting from a marketing crisis of some sort.

• As sales and profits decline over a long period of time, some firms withdraw. Those remaining
may reduce the number of products they offer, withdrawing from smaller segments and
weaker trade channels, cutting marketing budgets, and reducing prices further. Unless strong
reasons for retention exist, carrying a weak product is often very costly.
PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS AND CLASSIFICATIONS

• Many people think a product is tangible, but a product is anything that can be
offered to a market to satisfy a want or need, including physical goods,
services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organizations,
information, and ideas.
PRODUCT LEVELS: THE CUSTOMER-VALUE HIERARCHY

• In planning its market offering, the marketer needs to address five product levels (see Figure
12.2).2 Each level adds more customer value, and the five constitute a customer-value
hierarchy.

• • The fundamental level is the core benefit: the service or benefit the customer is really
buying. A hotel guest is buying rest and sleep. The purchaser of a drill is buying holes.
Marketers must see themselves as benefit providers.

• • At the second level, the marketer must turn the core benefit into a basic product. Thus a
hotel room includes a bed, bathroom, towels, desk, dresser, and closet.
• • At the third level, the marketer prepares an expected product, a set of attributes and
conditions buyers normally expect when they purchase this product. Hotel guests minimally
expect a clean bed, fresh towels, working lamps, and a relative degree of quiet.

• • At the fourth level, the marketer prepares an augmented product that exceeds customer
expectations. In developed countries, brand positioning and competition take place at this
level. In developing and emerging markets such as India and Brazil, however, competition
takes place mostly at the expected product level.

• • At the fifth level stands the potential product, which encompasses all the possible
augmentations and transformations the product or offering might undergo in the future.
PRODUCT CLASSIFICATIONS

• Marketers classify products on the basis of durability, tangibility, and use (consumer or
industrial). Each type has an appropriate marketing-mix strategy.

• DURABILITY AND TANGIBILITY Products fall into three groups according to durability and
tangibility:

• 1. Nondurable goods are tangible goods normally consumed in one or a few uses, such as
beer and shampoo. Because these goods are purchased frequently, the appropriate strategy
is to make them available in many locations, charge only a small markup, and advertise
heavily to induce trial and build preference.
• 2. Durable goods are tangible goods that normally survive many uses: refrigerators, machine
tools, and clothing. Durable products normally require more personal selling and service,
command a higher margin, and require more seller guarantees.

• 3. Services are intangible, inseparable, variable, and perishable products that normally
require more quality control, supplier credibility, and adaptability. Examples include haircuts,
legal advice, and appliance repairs.
CONSUMER-GOODS CLASSIFICATION
• When we classify the vast array of consumer goods on the basis of shopping habits, we distinguish
among convenience, shopping, specialty, and unsought goods.

• The consumer usually purchases convenience goods frequently, immediately, and with minimal effort.
Examples include soft drinks, soaps, and newspapers. Staples are convenience goods consumers
purchase on a regular basis. A buyer might routinely purchase Heinz ketchup, Crest toothpaste, and Ritz
crackers.

• Impulse goods are purchased without any planning or search effort, like candy bars and magazines.
Emergency goods are purchased when a need is urgent—umbrellas during a rainstorm, boots and
shovels during the first winter snow. Manufacturers of impulse and emergency goods will place them
where consumers are likely to experience an urge or compelling need to purchase.
• Shopping goods are those the consumer characteristically compares on such bases as suitability, quality,
price, and style. Examples include furniture, clothing, and major appliances. Homogeneous shopping
goods are similar in quality but different enough in price to justify shopping comparisons.
Heterogeneous shopping goods differ in product features and services that may be more important
than price. The seller of heterogeneous shopping goods carries a wide assortment to satisfy individual
tastes and trains salespeople to inform and advise customers.
• Specialty goods have unique characteristics or brand identification for which enough buyers are willing
to make a special purchasing effort. Examples include cars, stereo components, and men’s suits. A
Mercedes is a specialty good because interested buyers will travel far to buy one.

• Specialty goods don’t require comparisons; buyers invest time only to reach dealers carrying the
wanted products. Dealers don’t need convenient locations, although they must let prospective buyers
know where to find them.

• Unsought goods are those the consumer does not know about or normally think of buying, such as
smoke detectors. Classic examples of known but unsought goods are life insurance, cemetery plots, and
gravestones. Unsought goods require advertising and personal-selling support.
INDUSTRIAL-GOODS CLASSIFICATION

• We classify industrial goods in terms of their relative cost and how they enter the production process:
materials and parts, capital items, and supplies and business services.

• Materials and parts are goods that enter the manufacturer’s product completely. They fall into two
classes: raw materials, and manufactured materials and parts. Raw materials fall into two major groups:
farm products (wheat, cotton, livestock, fruits, and vegetables) and natural products (fish, lumber, crude
petroleum, iron ore). Farm products are supplied by many producers, who turn them over to marketing
intermediaries, who provide assembly, grading, storage, transportation, and selling services. Their
perishable and seasonal nature gives rise to special marketing practices, whereas their commodity
character results in relatively little advertising and promotional activity, with some exceptions.
• Natural products are limited in supply. They usually have great bulk and low unit value and must be
moved from producer to user. Fewer and larger producers often market them directly to industrial
users. Because users depend on these materials, long-term supply contracts are common. The
homogeneity of natural materials limits the amount of demand-creation activity. Price and delivery
reliability are the major factors influencing the selection of suppliers.
• Manufactured materials and parts fall into two categories: component materials (iron, yarn,
cement, wires) and component parts (small motors, tires, castings). Component materials are
usually fabricated further—pig iron is made into steel, and yarn is woven into cloth. The
standardized nature of component materials usually makes price and supplier reliability key
purchase factors.

• Component parts enter the finished product with no further change in form, as when small
motors are put into vacuum cleaners, and tires are put on automobiles. Most manufactured
materials and parts are sold directly to industrial users. Price and service are major marketing
considerations, with branding and advertising less important.
• Capital items are long-lasting goods that facilitate developing or managing the finished
product. They include two groups: installations and equipment. Installations consist of
buildings (factories, offices) and heavy equipment (generators, drill presses, mainframe
computers, elevators). Installations are major purchases. They are usually bought directly
from the producer, whose sales force includes technical personnel, and a long negotiation
precedes the typical sale. Producers must be willing to design to specification and to supply
post-sale services. Advertising is much less important than personal selling.
• Equipment includes portable factory equipment and tools (hand tools, lift trucks) and office
equipment (personal computers, desks). These types of equipment don’t become part of a
finished product. They have a shorter life than installations but a longer life than operating
supplies. Although some equipment manufacturers sell direct, more often they use
intermediaries, because the market is geographically dispersed, buyers are numerous, and
orders are small. Quality, features, price, and service are major considerations. The sales
force tends to be more important than advertising, although advertising can be used
effectively.
• Supplies and business services are short-term goods and services that facilitate developing
or managing the finished product. Supplies are of two kinds: maintenance and repair items
(paint, nails, brooms) and operating supplies (lubricants, coal, writing paper, pencils).
Together, they go under the name of MRO goods. Supplies are the equivalent of convenience
goods; they are usually purchased with minimum effort on a straight-rebuy basis. They are
normally marketed through intermediaries because of their low unit value and the great
number and geographic dispersion of customers. Price and service are important
considerations, because suppliers are standardized and brand preference is not high.
• Business services include maintenance and repair services (window cleaning, copier repair)
and business advisory services (legal, management consulting, advertising). Maintenance and
repair services are usually supplied under contract by small producers or from the
manufacturers of the original equipment. Business advisory services are usually purchased on
the basis of the supplier’s reputation and staff.
PRODUCT AND SERVICES
DIFFERENTIATION

• Here the seller faces an abundance of differentiation possibilities, including form, features,
customization, performance quality, conformance quality, durability, reliability, repairability,
and style.6 Design has become an increasingly important means of differentiation.
PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION

• FORM Many products can be differentiated in form—the size, shape, or physical structure of a product.
Consider the many possible forms of aspirin. Although essentially a commodity, it can be differentiated
by dosage size, shape, color, coating, or action time.
FEATURES
• Most products can be offered with varying features that supplement their basic function. A company
can identify and select appropriate new features by surveying recent buyers and then calculating
customer value versus company cost for each potential feature. Marketers should consider how many
people want each feature, how long it would take to introduce it, and whether competitors could easily
copy it.

• To avoid “feature fatigue,” the company must prioritize features and tell consumers how to use and
benefit from them. Companies must also think in terms of feature bundles or packages. Auto
companies often manufacture cars at several “trim levels.” This lowers manufacturing and inventory
costs. Each company must decide whether to offer feature customization at a higher cost or a few
standard packages at a lower cost.
CUSTOMIZATION

• Marketers can differentiate products by customizing them. As companies have grown proficient at
gathering information about individual customers and business partners (suppliers, distributors,
retailers), and as their factories are being designed more flexibly, they have increased their ability to
individualize market offerings, messages, and media. Mass customization is the ability of a company to
meet each customer’s requirements—to prepare on a mass basis individually designed products,
services, programs, and communications.
PERFORMANCE QUALITY

• Most products occupy one of four performance levels: low, average, high, or superior. Performance
quality is the level at which the product’s primary characteristics operate. Quality is increasingly
important for differentiation as companies adopt a value model and provide higher quality for less
money. Firms should design a performance level appropriate to the target market and competition,
however, not necessarily the highest level possible. They must also manage performance quality
through time. Continuously improving the product can produce high returns and market share; failing to
do so can have negative consequences.
CONFORMANCE QUALITY

• Buyers expect a high conformance quality, the degree to which all produced units are
identical and meet promised specifications. A product with low conformance quality will
disappoint some buyers.
DURABILITY

• Durability, a measure of the product’s expected operating life under natural or stressful
conditions, is a valued attribute for vehicles, kitchen appliances, and other durable goods.
The extra price for durability must not be excessive, however, and the product must not be
subject to rapid technological obsolescence, as personal computers, televisions, and cell
phones have sometimes been.
RELIABILITY

• Buyers normally will pay a premium for more reliable products. Reliability is a measure of the
probability that a product will not malfunction or fail within a specified time period. Maytag
has an outstanding reputation for creating reliable home appliances.
REPAIRABILITY

• Repairability measures the ease of fixing a product when it malfunctions or fails. Ideal
repairability would exist if users could fix the product themselves with little cost in money or
time. Some products include a diagnostic feature that allows service people to correct a
problem over the telephone or advise the user how to correct it. Many computer hardware
and software companies offer technical support over the phone, by fax or e-mail, or via real-
time chat online.
STYLE

• Style describes the product’s look and feel to the buyer. It creates distinctiveness that is hard
to copy. Car buyers pay a premium for Jaguars because of their extraordinary looks.
SERVICES DIFFERENTIATION

• When the physical product cannot easily be differentiated, the key to competitive success
may lie in adding valued services and improving their quality. The main service differentiators
are ordering ease, delivery, installation, customer training, customer consulting, and
maintenance and repair.
ORDERING EASE

• Ordering ease refers to how easy it is for the customer to place an order with the company.
Many financial service institutions offer secure online sites to help customers get information
and complete transactions more efficiently.
DELIVERY

• Delivery refers to how well the product or service is brought to the customer. It includes speed,
accuracy, and care throughout the process. Today’s customers have grown to expect speed: pizza
delivered in one-half hour, eyeglasses made in one hour, cars lubricated in 15 minutes. Many firms
have computerized quick response systems (QRS) that link the information systems of their
suppliers, manufacturing plants, distribution centers, and retailing outlets. Cemex, a giant cement
company based in Mexico, has transformed its business by promising to deliver concrete faster
than pizza. It equips every truck with a global positioning system (GPS) so dispatchers know its
real-time location. If your load is more than 10 minutes late, you get up to a 20 percent discount.
INSTALLATION

• Installation refers to the work done to make a product operational in its planned location.
Ease of installation is a true selling point for buyers of complex products like heavy equipment
and for technology novices.
CUSTOMER TRAINING

• Customer training helps the customer’s employees use the vendor’s equipment properly and
efficiently. General Electric not only sells and installs expensive X-ray equipment in hospitals,
it also gives extensive training to users. McDonald’s requires its new franchisees to attend
Hamburger University in Oak Brook, Illinois, for two weeks, to learn how to manage the
franchise properly.
CUSTOMER CONSULTING

• Customer consulting includes data, information systems, and advice services the seller offers
to buyers. Technology firms such as IBM, Oracle, and others have learned that such
consulting is an increasingly essential—and profitable—part of their business.
MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR

• Maintenance and repair programs help customers keep purchased products in good working
order. Firms such as Hewlett-Packard offer online technical support, or “e-support,” for
customers, who can search an online database for fixes or seek online help from a technician.
Even retailers are getting into the act.
RETURNS

• A nuisance to customers, manufacturers, retailers, and distributors alike, product returns are
also an unavoidable reality of doing business, especially with online purchases. Although the
average return rate for online sales is roughly 5 percent, return and exchange policies are
estimated to serve as a deterrent for one-third to one-half of online buyers.