The product life cycle (PLC) is a prominent concept in marketing. It can best be interpreted as the sequence of stages that a new product goes through, from its introduction to growth, maturity, and its ultimate decline. These are referred to as the four stages of the product lifecycle. Each one has its unique characteristics as well as implications for the business (Marketing-Insider, 2015).
The Virtual Reality headset is an example of a product that is in the introduction stage of this cycle. Being in the first phase, the product will tend to initially have a small market size. This would translate to low but gradually increasing sales. According to Perreault, Cannon, and McCarthy (2014), at this stage, the product will require large amounts of capital to finance such things as research, development, and consumer testing. Management would be tasked with developing aggressive marketing strategies that would facilitate this, as well as launch the product to the market.
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"Product Life Cycle and Branding".
Branding is the process of creating a product name or image that is unique in the minds of the customers. It is mainly achieved by using consistent themes when doing advertising campaigns (Demers, 2016). Branding is essential as it helps in the establishment of a differentiated and significant market presence that would attract and retain customers and acquire their loyalty.
A spinoff refers to an incidental or secondary product that is an outgrowth or development of a more important product. An example, in this scenario, can be the development of gaming VR headsets as secondary products of VR goggles. As per Mora (2015), the respective company can use market segmentation in its marketing research whereby it would engage a selected group of people in questions aimed at acquiring information on the values, attitudes, needs, demographics, and behaviors, in relation to acceptance of the product. The company can also do product testing whereby it would get a better understanding of how the product meets the needs of the customers. By so doing, it would also identify what improvements to make in the product before launching, thus saving a lot of time, effort, and capital. It can also achieve this through advertising testing and pricing research. To establish credibility, Mora (2015) suggests that the company can use the triangulation method. This would involve utilizing different data sources and collection methods as well as other analysts and theoretical perspectives in the analyzing of the data.
As the product moves through the PLC, it is subject to different costs and reception from the consumers. In stages like the introduction or decline, management may choose to change its brand to gain better reception. An example of this is Apple, which was in a decline phase in the 1990s, suffering from low consumer interests and sales. It, however, rebranded to a new image of modernity and minimalism when Steve Jobs took over in 1997 and has since then risen to gain back its glory in the industry (DeMers, 2016).
- DeMers, J. (2016, July 8). Five examples of rebranding done right. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/
- Marketing-Insider. (2015, July 13). Product lifecycle strategies and characteristics. Retrieved from https://marketing-insider.eu/
- Mora, M. (2015, November 18). Types of market research and their differences. Retrieved from https://www.surveygizmo.com/
- Perreault, W. D., Cannon, J. P., & McCarthy, E. J. (2014). Basic marketing: A marketing strategy planning approach (19th ed.). NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
