Page 334 - Marketing Management

COMPETITIVE DYNAMICS | CHAPTER 11 311

(a) Growth-Slump-Maturity Pattern (b) Cycle-Recycle Pattern (c) Scalloped Pattern

Sales Volume Sales Volume Sales Volume

Primary Recycle
cycle

Time Time Time
|Fig. 11.5|

Common Product Life-Cycle Patterns

The cycle-recycle pattern in Figure 11.5(b) often describes the sales of new drugs. The pharmaceuti-
cal 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). 39
Another common pattern is the scalloped PLC in Figure 11.5(c). Here, sales pass through a suc-
cession 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. 40

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. 41
The length of a fashion cycle is hard to predict. One view is that fashions end because they repre-
42
sent a purchase compromise, and consumers soon start looking for the missing attributes. For ex-
ample, 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, sat-
isfies societal norms and values, and keeps within technological limits as it develops. 43
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. Here’s a success story of a company
that managed to take a fad and make it a long-term success story.

Style Fashion Fad |Fig. 11.6|
Style, Fashion, and
Fad Life Cycles

Sales Sales Sales

Time Time Time