The Role Of New Product Development And Launch

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New product development is an essential key for a company to survive or stay competitive in the highly changed business environment nowadays(Annacchino, Marc A, 2003). Although technology plays an important role in the development of new products, the role of marketing should not be underestimated. A result illustrates that companies with a marketing department which has strong capabilities and skills are more likely to be more successful with their new products(Drechsler et al.,2013). Hence this essay will investigate the role of marketing played in the different stages of new product development and launch. And this paper will use the new energy drink brand Wakee as an example to see how marketing mix can be applied to support the marketing …show more content…

According to the definition gave by Kotler and Keller(2006), marketing is a process for an organization to create, communicate and deliver value to their customers, and at the same time manage customer relationships to benefit stakeholders and the organization itself. The definition above illustrates the importance of value exchange between customers and companies. From the definition, the role played by marketing is to help company create value and make sure it is delivered to their customers correctly. There are many reasons which can lead a company to failure in the development and launch of new products. And some of the reasons behind those unsuccessful products can be categorized into one major reason, that is, the company just fail to bring value to customers. For example, the product may be launched at bad timing, designed poorly, priced higher than customers can afford or the companies fail to advertise the products well(Kolter et al.,2013). Therefore companies must think carefully what value they are going to convey to their customers while developing new products and develop marketing mix strategy to help them communicate to consumers …show more content…

In the maturity stage, the sales of the product slow down, competitors might begin to decrease the price of the product or spend more on the promotion. In the decline stage, the sales and profits of product decline and some firms might choose to withdraw from the market(Kolter et al.,2013). The strategy companies use in the maturity stage should focus on maintaining brand royalty, holding customers, and defend the brand with promotion. Furthermore, companies should keep maintaining brand awareness to stimulate repeat purchase(Jobber,2010). For example, Wakee maintained their brand awareness by kept advertising the product on telly, like sponsored tv programmes or had product placements in TV series. In the decline stage, instead of trying to boost sales, companies should come up strategies to improve marketing productivity. The brand royalty which has been built up can be used by the company in the future(Jobber,2010). For instance, Wakee stopped promoting the product ,instead, they tried to build brand royalty by creating customer engagement and showing their corporate social responsibility. They gather customers’ feedback by online survey and held events like bottle recycling project to show corporate social

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