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Executive Summary

According to Philip Kotler, a product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need. But like markets, products have evolved through various stages. Companies, today, not only try to satisfy the wants and needs of the customers but also add some surprise elements or benefits to surprise the customers.

Product Life Cycle (PLC) provides us with the various stages that a product undergoes and this information can be used to formulate strategies on how to position and differentiate a product. Proper planning goes a long way in creating Brand Equity, which is the added value endowed to products and services. Products have evolved, but in some cases they have shorter life cycle compared to the earlier times, especially technological products like cell phones and home computers. Apparently, this has become a major concern for companies as the PLC of products are becoming shorter with each day. So they are faced with multiple challenges to sustain the product in the market and create brand equity.

This paper explains what is PLC and Brand Equity in brief. The introduction part also covers what is the rationale behind launching products with short PLC. And then it also gives us the advantages of creating Brand Equity. Taking cell phones as an example of products with short PLC, a case study on Nokia has been included. The case study describes the life cycle and the various stages that a cell phone goes through and how is Nokia dealing with the 4 Ps of marketing.

After that, it includes some of the challenges faced by companies like the limited time-frame, competition in the market, changing consumer preferences and uncertainty.

Lastly, some recommendations have been made to tackle challenges like how deal to with the limited time factor taking Hero Honda CBZ as an example. Why is it important to know competition and what are the ways to deal with it? It also discusses the possible pricing strategies that can be adopted by the companies. And finally, it answers how to deal with the changing consumer preferences.

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* Contributed by: -
Saikat Dey & Madhulika Verma,
ICFAI Business School, Gurgaon.