Adoption and Diffusion Process of New Products

The challenge of any new product is whether the market is ready to accept them. Through the formation and encouragement of trends, there are products that have successfully encouraged consumer patronage, thus, the product life cycle takes off at an impressive rate. When it comes to a product life cycle, as can be seen in the final stage, there are products that go through the final stage of decline whereas the others, after a period of maturity, continue to grow and develop thereby establishing further successes.

This is why not all products, despite its initial success in the market are able to hang on; this is because new products will keep on entering the market thereby displacing the ones that seem dated based on the times (Yamada, et al. , 2002). The conceptualization of any product starts with the identification of the core benefit; this determines what the customer is really buying, hence, the product is founded on the identified customer need. From this, the identified core benefit is translated into an actual product.

After the basic product is made, the expected product is formed. From the expected product comes the augmented product; afterwards, the potential product takes the development to the finish line such as, for example, including radio features, GPS and WAP. Hence, a product develops based on these levels (Yamada, et al. , 2002). When it comes to the adoption and the diffusion of new products, these levels of product development takes more turns.

This time, the product is expected to “revolutionize”, and this can be done through the diffusion approach of innovation “which is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of the social system” (Rogers, 1976). Innovation therefore plays an important role in the marketing of a new product especially as to how companies are able to market it. A new product’s successful diffusion is therefore based on how the product is differentiated from the other products that are available especially as to how this product is able to present or provide functions that have an appeal to the consumers.

One of the important aspects of diffusion, as mentioned by Rogers (1976), is time which reflects how the consumers may perceive certain products. In the aspect of technology where consumers are constantly faced with new innovations, the success of a new product relies on how its innovation is relevant to the needs of the current market. An example is how portable MP3 players have become successful in the past years, especially with the iPod products.

Prior to the iPod, portable players include the Walkman, the portable CD player, and the midi-player; the midi-player, albeit innovative in some ways and can be regarded as almost similar in concept as the portable MP3s, did not garner enough success to stay in the market. However, the iPod would become a tremendous success as it would redefine portable music players, and from there, other companies have followed suit and started to compete with the iPod.

However, innovation is not enough in the adoption and the diffusion of new products; trends apparently play an important role. The emergence of trends take effect through information, involvement and knowledge, which can be done through communication, publicity, advertisement, tie-up with the media, and sample offerings, among others (Yamada, et al. , 2002). From this, the marketing aspect plays a critical role among new products especially as these products are just about to enter a market that is already steeped in competition.

The strategy therefore lies in the successful and smart approaches as to how to put a product “out there’ not only through its merit but also the amount of buzz it gets in the society, especially in the media. Conclusion Marketing can be considered to make up a significant bulk of any company because this is how any firm is able to perform successfully in the market and in the industry. By means of understanding marketing, companies are able to identify its strengths and weaknesses thereby addressing the processes and defining its strategies that can contribute to its organizational and product success.

Hence, the main point of marketing is competitiveness, both in terms of its market advantage and its impact to the many functional competencies of any organization.

References

Baines, P. & Chansarkar. B. 2002. Introducing Marketing Research. John Wiley & Sons, New York. Hills, G. 1994. Marketing and Entrepreneurship: Research Ideas and Opportunities. Quorum Books, Westport, CT. Iacobuccid, D. 2001. ‘Introduction’. In. D. Iacobuccid, ed. Kellogg on Marketing, Wiley, New York.