Product Life-Cycle Strategies

“After launching the new product, management wants the product to enjoy a long and happy life. Although it does not expect the product to sell forever, the company wants to earn a decent profit to cover all the effort and risk that went into launching it. Management is aware that each product will have a life cycle, although its exact shape and length is not known in advance.

Typical Product Life Cycle
1. Product Development – begins when the company finds and develops a new-product idea. During product development, sales are zero and the company’s investment cost mount.
2. Introduction – is a period of slow growth as the product is introduced in the market. Profits are nonexistent in this stage because of the heavy expenses of product introduction.
3. Growth – is a period of rapid market acceptance and increasing profits.
4. Maturity – is a period of slowdown in sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by most potential buyers. Profits level off or decline because of increases marketing outlays to defend the product against competition.
5. Decline – is the period when sales fall off and profits drop.

(Armstrong & Kotler – Marketing 9e Ch.8 pg.246)”

Our main goal for Kettle V. is to by a style and not a fad. We will always re-invent Kettle V. and create more unique marketing plans whenever Kettle V. starts to stumble. If successful, I would like to expand Kettle V. into other unique tea/vodkas and eventually into fruit flavor vodkas. But for right now, all I want is a successful intro into the vodka market for Kettle V.