4 Ps



1. Understand and be able to apply the Product Life
Cycle.
2. Apply the Product
Life Cycle to your coursework.

• So what is at the heart of this marketing triumph?
• Not only is the iPod making huge profits
(probably more than
$1,000 million in
2005), but its reputation is making more people buy
Apple computers.

• The iPod was launched in 2001, but it was only the establishment of iTunes in 2002 that made sales start to move.

• Where do you think the iPod range is in the product life cycle now?

Worldwide Sales of Apple iPods
Source: Apple Com puter accounts
7,000,000
6,000,000
5,000,000
4,000,000
3,000,000
2,000,000
1,000,000
0
2002
Q4
2003
Q1
2003
Q2
2003
Q3
2003
Q4
2004
Q1
2004
Q2
2004
Q3
2004
Q4
2005
Q1
2005
Q2
2005
Q3

• Product : quick product development, from iPod
2001, to iPod Mini 2003, iPod Photo 2004 to iPod
Shuffle 2005. As with all its competitors, the iPod is made (very cheaply) in
China, so the key to its success is the stylish design, not high quality manufacture.

• Price : always startlingly high; at launch, the iPod was over £200 ; even today the iPod Mini 2 is
£139 , whereas other MP3 players can cost as little as £20 . Apple has managed the business dream of achieving market penetration at prices that skim the market.

• Place : nothing new here; Apple have distributed the iPod through the normal mixture of department stores, electrical shops and on-line retailers.
• Are ipods sold in supermarkets?

• Promotion : brilliant and lavish use of posters and
TV, featuring one of the all-time great images, the
‘silhouette’.
• So what will happen next to iPod? Sony and Nokia are desperate to win some of this incredibly profitable business. Why carry a mobile phone and an iPod, if you could get them combined into one?

1. Describe your product or service.
2. Describe the Product Life Cycle
3. What makes your product or service different from others?
4. Where is your product or service on the
Product Life Cycle?
5. How does the Product Life Cycle help you?