DESCRIBE THE FIVE TYPES OF CONSUMERS IN THE CONSUMER INNOVATION MODEL AND EXPLAIN ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE.
Successful advertising begins with understanding who your consumers are and how to meet their needs. The consumer is the one who consumes the goods and services produced. Products like people have been viewed as having a life cycle. The product life cycle concept describes the stages new products go through in the market place. These are introduction, grow, maturity, saturation and decline stages.
The introduction stage is the stage where sales are low as a new idea is first introduced to a market. Customers do not look for the product, they do not even know about it. Informative commotion is needed to tell potential customers about the advantages and use of the new product. The second stage of the product life cycle is growth. At this stage there is rapid increase in sales and it is at this stage that competitors appear. The innovators begin to make huge profits as more and more customers buy. The next stage is maturity stage. This is where competition gets tougher. Many aggressive competitors enter the market to make profit.
The saturation stage is next. This is where the product is familiar to consumers and can be obtained easily. Here industries embark on a lot of sales promotion such as gift vouchers for consumers, money back guarantee etc… The final stage in the product life cycle is the decline stage where new products replace old ones. This is usually the most difficult stage for a company.
In view of the product life cycle, researchers have identified five types of consumers in the consumer innovation model. These are innovators, early majority, laggards, early adaptors and the late majority.
Innovators are consumers who are venturesome, highly educated and use multiple information sources. This type of type of consumers will normally go a step further to seek more information on the product needed. Technological advances and mass communication tools help this group to acquire the information they need about the product.
The next group of buyers in the model is the early majority category. This group of consumers likes to deliberate on the product that is advantages and disadvantages of the product before purchasing. They also seek information on the product through informal social contacts before buying the product.
The third group of consumers is the laggards. This group may choose or purchase a product only when they are assured that they will not incur debts. They depend on neighbours and friends for information on the product they wish to purchase. They are also convinced if they see people especially close relatives or friends using the product.
The early adopters are also another group of consumers. They are mainly comprised of highly educated people or leaders in the society. Due to their status in the community, people seem to have confidence in the products this people use and may follow their footsteps.
The last group in the consumer innovation model is the late majority. These are consumers who are skeptical about product purchasing due to some past experiences with other products. This type of consumers are average in social status.
The life cycle of a product depends on sales to the various types of consumers, therefore industries must employ the right marketing and advertising techniques in influencing the consumer. These techniques will also determine the degree of importance and result of each stage in a products life cycle.
For any product to be successful, it must be purchased by innovators and early adaptors, This is because these people are widely respected and once the product is accepted by them, the adoption of new products moves on to the early majority, late majority and laggard categories.
Industries or manufacturers must realize that there is a big relationship between a products life cycle and the various categories of consumers. For example consumers may reject the use of a product in its introductory stages due to factors such as products not being compatible with existing habits, product not providing any incentive to change and risk barriers such as economic, social and psychological. Among the psychological barriers that exist are cultural differences or image.
Recognizing the concept of the product life cycle helps a marketing manager to remember that a product may need continual adjustments to present sales decline and to formulate a marketing strategy to stimulate sales. Failure to recognize the life cycle conception has dramatic consequences for an industry.
REFERENCE
1. Marketing (3rd edt) Berkowitz, Kerin, Hartley, Rudelius
2. Book Marketing (11 edt) Mc McCarthy/ Perreault
3. Strategic Marketing Management – Craven and Lamb
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