09/21/10
Mr. Bourgase
NAME:
Product Life Cycle (Sports and Entertainment)
Worksheet 07
1) Place the Toronto Sports Teams on the
curve:
a. Argonauts
b. Blue Jays
c. Maple Leafs
d. Raptors
e. Rock
f. Toronto F.C.
2) What strategies could each team execute to improve their chances for success?
3) Why would those strategies work?
TEAM
WHAT
WHY
a. Argonauts
b. Blue Jays
c. Maple Leafs
d. Raptors
e. Rock
f. Toronto F.C.
Product Life Cycle (Sports and Entertainment)
Worksheet 07
Entertainment Product Life Cycle
by Multimedia Marketing Knowledge Centre
http://www.multimediamarketing.com/mkc/productlifecycle/
One of the most common concepts referred to in marketing is the product life cycle.
Whether it is candles, horseshoes, hair nets or Harrier jets - products have life cycles.
That means they all have a beginning… and an end. Political, economic, social and
technological changes affect product life cycles. The time frame can vary
according to the industry but the pattern remains the same: slow sales growth, rapid
sales growth, mature sales, and falling sales, as the product is launched, grows
rapidly, matures and eventually declines.
Perhaps a little simplistic but nevertheless it can provide a useful insight into a
common pattern of total industry sales which the marketer must recognize.
Businesses, like steam engine manufacturers refused to see the end of their product's
life cycle. They went out of business. They did not acknowledge the inevitable end of
their product's life cycle.
Although candles and horseshoes still exist today, their sales have peaked long ago
and are now minuscule compared to the vast volumes which were sold during
previous centuries. Vinyl records and turntables have a shorter life cycle.
Black and white TV had a relatively short cycle which was extended by colour TV
which is now near its decline stage as multimedia on-line PC/TVs emerge.
The marketing mix varies during each stage of the product life cycle.
A product's life cycle can be extended by finding new users, new uses, increased
usage and of course, product modification. New users mean new target markets.
New uses for a product mean that new benefits and new ways of using the product
have to be found. Increased usage is simply trying to get customers to increase their
quantity and frequency of use.
Extended or not, the Product Life Cycle is usually applied more easily to product
form rather than product class or specific brands. For example, a product form such
as black and white TV has a clearer life cycle than televisions in total which is a
product class
Different products and whole industries have different time horizons, for example the
horseshoe's life cycle has had hundreds of years while TV may have perhaps only 70.
The danger of over-dependence on the life cycle means that a temporary dip in
sales could trigger a premature withdrawal of a product - if the dip is misinterpreted
as the final decline of the product. Peter Doyle, in the linker, explains his dislike for the
concept.
Finally, the life cycle is more descriptive than predictive. It describes the behaviour or
sales pattern of a product as opposed to predicting its future sales precisely. Despite
this limitation , the steam engine companies might just have survived in some
manner or form if they'd been aware of where they were on the Product Life Cycle
and its fatal finality.