Exam 12: Developing and Managing Products

The consumer adoption process spans from awareness of a product to its acceptance or rejection after a purchase has been made.

Briefly describe the four new-product development strategies.

A market penetration strategy seeks to increase sales of existing products in existing markets.

Product lifecycles can stretch indefinitely as a result of decisions designed to increase the frequency of use by current customers; increase the number of users for the product; or change package sizes, labels, or product quality.

Harley Davidson employees are heavily engaged in phenomenological research - living the life of a biker. Riding their own products and paying attention to what their customers are doing with Harley motorcycles has resulted in many new-product development ideas. This research is particularly useful in the new-product development:

In the context of the consumer diffusion process, "_____" constitute the final group of consumers that make trial purchases of a new product.

The Sanyo Xacti HD1010 was named the "2008 Gadget of the Year." The pistol-shaped Xacti is a digital camera and video camera in one. Instead of the bulky and heavy digital cameras and video recorders of the time, the Xacti combined the functions of both. Xacti takes 4-megapixel stills and 1080i video. While the Xacti looked promising and initial sales increased rapidly, it was just a few years before the cameras in cell phones were able to provide the same capabilities in a much smaller package. As a result, sales dropped rapidly. It is safe to say the Xacti in the _______ stage of the product life cycle. ?

Colin owns a dog food business, but wants to develop a canine fashion line as a way of expanding his portfolio and increasing sales and profits. One of the things customers love about Colin's company is that all of the products are manufactured locally, creating jobs for young people. Though he does not have a lot of money and hopes that he won't have to hire new staff, he thinks he might have to. Rather than developing a canine fashion line, which of the following alternatives can you suggest to Colin?

Aldi is a chain of discount supermarkets based in Germany. The company has recently started opening stores across the United States. Based on this information, the product development strategy being pursued by Aldi is known as a _______ strategy.