Create Hype & Curiosity - Since the product has a short life cycle, a good strategy would be to create a lot of hype and curiosity in the mind of the consumer before the launch of the product. In a way, it extends the life of the product as the consumers begin to think and react even before the product is launched. Lets look at Hero Honda CBZ motorbike.

CBZ was a hugely successful product when it was launched and it was able to sustain itself in the market until Bajaj Pulsar took over. Now, Hero Honda is about to launch it's new product and it's capitalizing on CBZ's success by using the tagline - 'From the makers of CBZ', thereby, creating hype and setting consumer expectation. This strategy works well before the launch. Whether the expectation is met or not remains to be seen.

Another example would be that of movies. Movies have been particularly affected by this short product life cycle as most of them recover cost in the first week of release, make profit in the next few days, and then fade away. The trailers that are shown on television before the release are nothing but creating hype and curiosity in the mind of the consumer. If the companies are successfully able to do this then they should also allow pre-booking facilities. Before Tata Indica was launched, it had such a large number of pre-bookings that it virtually failed to meet the demand. So a company must not only create demand, it should also be able to satisfy the demand.

Understanding Market Competition - The companies must have an insightful understanding of competition in the market. This understanding a long way in creating brand equity. The first thing that a company must look at is to have it's strategies in place. For example - form a strategic group and give them the constraints to work on. The constraints could be the type of product, expected life cycle and the price at which the company is planning to launch it in the market. Analyzing strengths and weaknesses is a reactive approach in product development. But it helps in targeting the market. For example -

X - has excellent features but poor availability and service
Y - is overall good with excellent service
Z - is less known but is an average product

Now, a new entrant can target Z on availability and service and overall target Z but it should never target Y.

Next

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