NOKIA Chapter 9

Chapter 9

New-Product Development and Product Life-Cycle Strategies

Individual Assignment

1. Read the opening vignette to the chapter. Think about the answers to the following questions:
1. How would rewarding creativity in taking photographs translate into creativity in product development?
2. How has Nokia built innovation into its organization?
3. How has Nokia organized for new product development?
4. Are wireless phones styles, fashions, or fads?

Share your findings with the class.

Think-Pair-Share

1. Consider the following questions, formulate an answer, pair with the student on your right, share your thoughts with one another, and respond to questions from the instructor.
1. How can a firm obtain new products?
2. What is a new product?
3. Why do new products fail?
4. What are the steps in the new product development process? Characterize each one.
5. Which step do you think is the most important? Explain and justify.
6. What are the major sources of new product ideas?
7. What is involved in idea screening?
8. What is a product concept?
9. What is one way product concepts are tested?
10. What are the parts of a marketing strategy?
11. What must happen before a product can be developed?
12. What are the different types of test markets?
13. How can new product development be sped up?
14. What are the stages of the product life cycle? Comment on each stage as to characteristics.
15. What is the difference between a style, fashion, and fad?
16. What are the different strategies for modifying a product in the maturity stage?
17. What are the strategies for dealing with products in the decline stage?

Outside Example

ProductScan® Online is an Internet-based service from Market Intelligence Service, Ltd. It is a full-service marketing intelligence service for new product launches in the consumer packaged goods field. It offers subscribers enough information for them to spot trends or track potential threats to their business.

They’ve developed six criteria to measure new products against, because they claim that “the key to success in new consumer packaged goods marketing is innovation.” So, they decided to define innovation. Their criteria are:

·         Positioning the product to new users or usage.

·         Providing a consumer benefit with new packaging.

·         Offering additional value through a new formulation.

·         Introducing new technology to the product.

·         Opening a new market for the product.

·         Merchandising.

Although the last criterion, merchandising, has not been addressed in the textbook as yet, the other five criteria have been. Go to the Web site, http://www.productscan.com/, and click on “What’s New.” There are free reports there, by year, on new product innovations that have been released. Select the latest year, and review the products listed. Answer the following questions:

1. Apply the above criteria to the products listed. Are they all truly innovative?
2. Look at the number of products launched over the years (statistics contained within the report). Considering that only one in ten new products succeed, what is the motivation for companies to launch such an astounding number of new products?
3. Which of the products listed would you have test marketed? Why?
4. Which products do you predict will still be considered innovative in another year?
5. Take any of the products discussed and trace through their likely life cycle. What kind of marketing strategy would you use in each stage to keep the product at the forefront?