Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e

21. Developing Innovative
    Marketing Plans

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

Developing Innovative Marketing Plans 613

This is especially true in larger firms like Maytag—where specialists are needed—

just because the size of the whole marketing job is too big for one person. Yet the

ideas of the product manager, the advertising manager, the sales manager, the logis-

tics manager, and whoever makes pricing decisions may have to be adjusted to

improve the whole mix. It’s critical that each marketing mix decision work well

with all of the others. A breakdown in any one decision area may doom the whole

strategy to failure.

Careful consideration of where a firm’s offering fits in the product life cycle

can also be a big help in evaluating the best marketing mix. We introduced

Exhibit 21-3 in Chapter 10 to summarize how marketing mix variables typically

change over the product life cycle. Now you can see that this exhibit is a good

review of many topics we’ve discussed throughout the text. Certainly, the pio-

neering effort required for a really new product concept is different from the job

of taking market share away from an established competitor late in the market

growth stage.

Further, when you’re thinking about the product life cycle don’t forget that

markets change continually. This means you must plan strategies that can adjust

to changing conditions. The original marketing plan for a new marketing strategy

Product life cycle

guides planning

Market

introduction

Market

growth

Market

maturity

Sales

decline

Total industry

sales

Total industry

profit

Time

$ 0

+

Competitive

situation

Product

Place

Promotion

Price

Monopoly or

monopolistic

competition

One or few

Build channels

Maybe selective distribution

Build primary

demand

Pioneering-

informing

Skimming or

penetration

Monopolistic

competition or

oligopoly

Variety—try

to find best

product

Build brand

familiarity

Build selective demand

Informing/Persuading Persuading/Reminding

(frantically competitive)

Meet competition (especially in oligopoly)

or

Price dealing and price cutting

Monopolistic

competition or

oligopoly

heading toward

pure competition

All “same”

Battle of brands

Move toward more

intensive distribution

Some drop out

Exhibit 21-3

Typical Changes in

Marketing Variables over the

Product Life Cycle