Product Life Cycle and Product Level
Product Life Cycle:
The product life cycle (PLC) represents the stages that a product goes through from its introduction to the market until its decline and eventual discontinuation. Understanding the product life cycle is essential for businesses to make informed decisions regarding product development, marketing strategies, pricing, distribution, and resource allocation at different stages of the product’s life cycle.
The typical stages of the product life cycle include:
- Introduction: The introduction stage involves launching a new product into the market, building awareness, generating interest, and establishing a presence among target customers. Marketing efforts focus on creating awareness, trial, and adoption, and strategies may include promotional activities, pricing strategies, and distribution expansion to reach early adopters and innovators.
- Growth: The growth stage is characterized by increasing sales, market acceptance, and expanding distribution and market share. Marketing efforts aim to stimulate demand, drive sales growth, and build brand loyalty through targeted marketing campaigns, advertising, promotions, and customer engagement strategies.
- Maturity: The maturity stage involves stabilizing sales, market saturation, and intensifying competition, requiring businesses to defend market share, differentiate products, and maintain profitability. Marketing strategies focus on retaining customers, maximizing profitability, extending product life, and exploring new market segments, distribution channels, or product variations.
- Decline: The decline stage signifies decreasing sales, market share, and profitability due to changing consumer preferences, technological advancements, competitive pressures, or other external factors. Businesses may decide to maintain, harvest, or discontinue the product, implementing cost-cutting measures, reducing marketing efforts, or exploring alternative strategies, such as product innovation, repositioning, or revitalization, to extend the product’s life or transition to new opportunities.
Product Level:
The product level refers to the different levels or components of a product offering that provide varying degrees of value, benefits, features, and satisfaction to consumers. Products can be classified into different levels based on their attributes, characteristics, and value propositions, including:
- Core Product: The core product represents the fundamental or primary benefit, solution, or value that customers seek or derive from a product. It addresses the essential needs, requirements, or problems that consumers intend to fulfill or solve through the product, such as transportation, communication, or entertainment.
- Actual Product: The actual product encompasses the tangible features, attributes, and specifications of the product that customers can see, touch, feel, or experience directly, including the design, performance, quality, functionality, features, packaging, and branding elements that differentiate the product from competitors and create value, satisfaction, and appeal for consumers.
- Augmented Product: The augmented product includes additional or supplementary elements, benefits, services, or enhancements that accompany the core and actual product offerings and provide additional value, convenience, support, or satisfaction to consumers. Augmented product elements may include warranties, guarantees, customer service, maintenance, installation, training, or other value-added services that enhance the overall product offering and customer experience.
 the product life cycle and product level concepts provide frameworks for understanding and managing products throughout their lifecycle and addressing different levels of value, benefits, features, and satisfaction that products offer to consumers. Businesses need to develop and implement effective product strategies, innovation, marketing, and management practices to navigate the product life cycle stages, optimize product offerings, meet customer needs, and achieve sustainable growth and success in the marketplace.