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WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VARIOUS STAGES OF THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE.

The Product Life Cycle can be described as the birth, growth and decline of a particular product. It can be likened to the life cycle of the  human being as we go through  birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. In the same way, products that come onto the market also have a life-cycle. In other words, the product life cycle depicts the very existence or life of a particular product in the market and the various stages it undergoes to either sustain itself or ‘die’ on the market.

Basically, the product life cycle means that,

a)    Products  are meant to possess a certain life span.

b)   Products, like human beings must necessarily pass through certain stages of life and as it is, it has to deal with a lot of difficulties and also very good opportunities. (what is called ‘teething Problems’ in the life of a baby.

c)    And that at every stage in the product’s life, there is the need for different strategies to manage the product in ensuring that it has a longer life span. This will involve employing marketing, financial ,manufacturing and human resource strategies in each life cycle stage.

Every product that finds itself on the market has what is normally referred to as ‘the stages of a product life cycle’ which are as follows:

a)    The Introduction stage- this is when the product is first introduced onto the market

b)   The Growth Stage: this is when the product has positive response from the public or consumer.

c)    Maturity Stage: this depicts that the product has done so well in the market that it has produced consumer confidentiality and trust and can compete with any of its competitors and has a fair share of the market.

d)   Saturation and Decline: by this time, the customers are declining by the day and if care is not taken, the product could be phased off.

There are characteristics that go with the various stages of the product life cycle and it  can be said to be warning signals which the manufacturer of any product should be mindful of.

At the introduction stage, because the product is new on the market, it is enjoyed as one will welcome a new born baby into the world, it will receive all the pampering, but at a certain stage, the pampering will have to stop for vital lessons of life to be learnt. At this time, as the name (introduction) suggest, the product needs to be introduced and advertised with strong emphasis on its features and attributes. It is also critical to note that the period of introduction deals with time.  The costs are very high, there is little or no competition, the demand has to be created and customers have to be prompted to try the product and not much money is made at this stage.

If the introduction stage is well managed, the product will automatically move to another stage which has been said is the growth stage. At this point the product would have moved from having teething problems to a stage where it can stand the competition. The characteristics for this stage are that, public awareness and probably product confidence would have been gained, profits would have risen, and competition starts to boost and boom and sales volumes increases significantly. competition begins to increase with a few new players in establishing market.

The next stage which will be the maturity stage is characterized by the attributes and features of the products being well known but that does not mean that you should rest. Around this time, there is price change or reduction and distributors receive incentives which in turn benefits retailers as well. It is essential to encourage brand switching and segmentation at this stage. Industrial profits go down, costs are lowered as a result of production volumes increasing and experience curve effects. There is also an  increase in competitors entering the market and prices tend to drop due to the proliferation of competing products. At this stage also, brand differentiation and feature diversification is emphasized to maintain or increase market share.

The Last but one stage in the product life cycle is the saturation stage which alerts that more effort must be put in to sustain the product. At this stage, costs become counter-optimal, sales volume decline and prices, profitability diminish. When profit is made, it becomes more of a challenge of production/distribution efficiency than increased sales. At this level, the product is almost dying and must be sustained by applying marketing and advertising strategies.

The last is the decline stage which could be the ‘death’ of the product. At this time not plenty customers will be left and the appropriate thing to do is sales promotion- buy one, get one free, gift vouchers, raffle draw etc. it is also crucial that the producer  offer them new opportunities for them to use the product for multiple uses/ ways. Advertising must have renewed importance in the form of revamping,, rebranding and re-labeling.

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Nana Ama Asafo-Boakye ( Level 300)  Weekend

Find the various types of consumers in the consumer market and the business market.

A consumer can be described as the one who consumes foods and services produced. Also, someone who has purchased goods and services for personal consumption can also be described as a consumer. A consumer then is very important because if an organization produces goods or provides services and there is no consumer, then it means that they will be running at a loss.

Consumers are the end users of goods and services while a group of customers who purchase goods for inputs example organisations and businesses are referred to as customers. Markets can be critically examined via the product itself, or end consumer or both and the most common distinction is between consumer and business markets. To also understand the types of consumers in both the consumer and business market we need to firstly define who a consumer is? And in this case a consumer according to Philip Kotler looks at a consumer as the ultimate user of the product or service; the consumer may not have paid for the product or service.

There are different types of consumers in the consumer market and these are characterized by a lot of factors that the consumer consider before making any decision to either purchase or consume certain goods. Below are some of these features:

1)     A Rational Consumer:

 This is the type of consumer who takes certain things into consideration like the price of the corresponding good. If the prices of those goods (that is, complementary good) are very exorbitant then he is not in a position to purchase it or his interest in those goods will not be high. For example, if the cost of electricity is too high in a given instance, then a rational consumer will be very careful in purchasing a washing machine. This kind of consumer in effect can be said to be associated with the running cost of the product to be purchased in that it will be high and therefore a rational consumer will not purchase the product with high running cost. The rational consumer therefore cannot be compared to other consumers because he applies scientific methods in forming his decision to either purchase or not.

2) An Emotionally Attached Consumer:

This type of consumer has a kind of nostalgic feelings towards a certain product, goods or services. In other words, it could be that the consumer does not have a pressing need for this product but because of the emotional attachment, maybe it reminds him of a loved one or something spectacular that happened to him while he used that product or engaged the services of a certain company. Such consumers often are likely to stick to such products and it does not matter if there is  new product that has the same features, he will still prefer the brand that he is emotionally attached to. I know of a certain family that lives in Dzorwulu who will not use any toothpaste apart from Colgate and will not use any soap apart from Palm Olive and when I enquired about why they like these products, they told me that it was a family tradition and that it brought back many happy memories when they used to live in England.  There are certain types of products that evoke such feelings such as fun, pride and pleasure, when consumers attach certain emotions to a product then this will influence their buying decisions, a good example is the rejection of the new coca cola brand in 1985 despite its preferred taste people still preferred the old brand because they had already certain attached emotions to the old brand.

3. The Advertisement inclined consumer: 

Because advertisements are a means by which the availability and the quality of products are notified to consumers, a consumer who has a lot of interest can be influenced by advertisement. It could be that he does not have a need for that particular product but because he sees such an advertisement, he makes a decision to purchase or hire a service. Because adverts can act as a persuasive tool, it becomes a very vital inducing element in the consumer. The wordings and the pictures depicted by an advert either on the radio, television or in the print media or on the bill board can go a long way to influence the consumer.  It could also be that the consumer could be going through non availability of information of a perceived need in his life, once the adverts seem to meet his need, he will go for that product. Once an advert seem to depict quality, offers and price cuts, availability of a product and the price of the product, this will aid the consumers to make quick decisions about purchasing a product. The adverts also aid in building brand preferences and loyalty through their constant and consistent campaigns.

4) Credit Facilities

 There are consumers who would like to buy or consume a product because of credit facilities. For instance, if a company takes its goods and services to a certain workplace and informs them that they can purchase those goods or hire their services and pay it on hire purchase, it is likely that they will have a lot of people within that setting coming on board because of the mode of payment. The availability of credit facilities means that a consumer can purchase products on credit basis; therefore the consumer can still afford to purchase very expensive products despite his or her low income. The existence of credit facilities will influence the customers buying decision and also influence impulse buying in that the consumer will purchase goods on credit without having to consider his low income or financial constraints.

5) Need Satisfaction

 Because human beings have needs that has to be satisfied, the consumer will go at great lengths to make sure his needs are met. Maslow theorized that   human beings seek to satisfy lower needs and then the higher needs and he pyramidically arranged these as:

Physiological needs:  These are fundamental necessitation that every human requires and these include the basic needs such as food and shelter.

Safety and Security: this include shelter and the needs to protect one from danger

Social Needs - these are the needs for one to belong to certain groups or family

Esteem Development and Realization:  these are the needs for recognition and dignity

Self actualisation- these are the needs to realise our full potential.

Depending on the type of need a product is designed to satisfy it highly influences the consumers decision, consumers will tend to satisfy the lower needs then move on to the next level of needs. The motivational theory is a break through to the explanation of decisions made by consumers regarding satisfaction of need of certain products, however certain products are designed to satisfy more than one need example food may be designed to satisfy a physiological need and at the same time a social or recreational need.

All this factors contribute to the decisions consumers make when deciding on what to buy, therefore consumer’s decisions depend upon so many factors which must be taken into consideration by firms when undertaking market research in order to increase their sales volumes to attain higher profits.

WHAT IS THE CRITERIA FOR SELECTING AN INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING

In order to reach a lot of people and potential clients with their products, goods and services, manufacturers and companies have found a way of getting these messages across by various means using advertising as a major strategy. Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services which uses the media with an identifiable sponsor can be described as Advertising.

Over the years, the world has become a global village making international advertising very essential. International advertising requires that one looks for an international advertising agency. An advertising agency or ad agency as is normally referred to can be described as a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services. An agency can also handle overall marketing and branding strategies and sales promotions for its client. Some international advertising agencies are, Ogilvy & Mather which was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy, as "Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson, & Mather" in Manhattan and AFROMEDIA.

a)      Creativity techniques:  Does the agency use a lot of techniques and procedures to enhance creativity? For example, when they are trying to build or construct a message for the target audience, do they follow a highly structured brainstorming procedure? It is imperative to note that knowledge has increased and the creative needs of people have changed and so an agency that does not have very good creative techniques is not worth hiring.

b)      Legal/ethical guidelines: the Agency that you wish to hire must have certain legal or ethical guidelines that ultimately protect your company, products or services from offending interest groups or even preventing them from staging a boycott of your products. They should also have a written code of ethics that they formally apply to each campaign. For instance, if I want an international advertiser based in the United States of America to promote ‘asaana’ a locally brewed drink in the US, can it be done without them offending anyone?

c)       Capabilities of the team: Because we live in a competitive world, it will be very needful to ascertain  whether the international advertising agency has a capable team with expertise  to handle a product or service which is not familiar to them., finding out whether they have a complete list of clients served who were successful or not.

d)      Competent Research Team: Competence is all about having control of what you do and making it appealing to people. Therefore it should be known whether the advertising agency has a team that knows how to do research appropriately and come out with a comprehensive achievable report based on competence.

e)       Planning techniques: Do they know how to plan a campaign effectively? For example,

do they provide an effective time-line for developing a campaign? Do they consider alternative strategies? Do they have contingency plans? Did they plan this meeting effectively? Much evidence exists that formal planning techniques will improve the performance of an organization. Are they aware of this research and of the recommended procedures.  

In conclusion, if an international advertising agency has these core values then one can rely on it to expertly handle its international advertising needs.