A Project to Fail The world of marketing is multifaceted and offers unending cha
ID: 2429185 • Letter: A
Question
A Project to Fail
The world of marketing is multifaceted and offers unending challenges that require creative thinking to make a difference. For this weeks assignment I offer the challenge for you to look around your city/neighborhood for a product or business that has failed in the marketplace. What happened to cause this business or product to fail? This assignment is meant to get you thinking outside the box, and to have fun and be creative. There is no right or wrong answer. Building a better mousetrap won’t guarantee success, and this assignment drives this message home.
Through this assignment you will learn that failure is a valuable learning tool and that many great ideas are born from the experience of failure are well on the road to success. Through this assignment you will be able to showcase the knowledge you gained from this weeks reading and lecture on the first element of the marketing mix, “Product”, and if you choose you can use the product life cycle to assist you in explaining how the business/product failed.
The requirements below must be met for your paper to be accepted and graded:
Write between 500 – 750 words (approximately 2 – 3 pages) using Microsoft Word.
Attempt APA style, see example below.
Use font size 12 and 1” margins.
Include cover page and reference page.
At least 60% of your paper must be original content/writing.
No more than 40% of your content/information may come from references.
Use at least two references from outside the course material, preferably from EBSCOhost. Text book, lectures, and other materials in the course may be used, but are not counted toward the two reference requirement.
Reference material (data, dates, graphs, quotes, paraphrased words, values, etc.) must be identified in the paper and listed on a reference page.
Reference material (data, dates, graphs, quotes, paraphrased words, values, etc.) must come from sources such as, scholarly journals found in EBSCOhost, online newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, government websites, etc. Sources such as Wikis, Yahoo Answers, eHow, etc. are not acceptable.
PLEASE NO PLAGIARISM!!!!!! IN YOUR OWN WORDS!!!!!
Explanation / Answer
Marketing mix refers to a set of tools that a firm uses to undertake the marketing objectives. It refers to determine the right place, method and right time to put the product in the target market of right consumers of that product. The four P’s of marketing are Product, Price, Place and Promotion. These act as the pillars of marketing mix.
A product is a substance, tangible or intangible, built to satisfy the needs of people. The product has to be in demand by the target market customers. The product has a life cycle that has to be well researched about during its development phase. The cycle includes the growth, maturity and decline phase. There is a need of innovation and reinvention to keep up the product’s demand in the market. In all, the marketers have to do a lot to expand the current marketing mix of the product.
Film and photography industries have emerged as one of the important industries today. Looking back some time ago, it was noticed that a strong brand ‘Kodak’ was a dominant seller of the products in this market. But, what circumstances led to the fading away of such a big brand from the market. Kodak, one of the ancient producers of camera in the market, which was a dominant market leader during the twentieth century. In 1975, first digital camera was produced by Kodak engineer, Steve Sasson. But, it was not much appreciated, hence, he produced a modern digital camera, a DSLR in 1989. This invention was innovative, and hinted a foreseeable future technology too early. However, it was a rough estimated structure, so, a lot of ifs and buts followed it with a fear of its effects in the film market, they never knew that the digital photography was the next curve in the world of photography. Kodak continued to focus on its unique selling area of quality films and photo printing that it missed its chance to revolutionise the world of photography with its digital innovation. It always feared that the new era of digital photography would come up with a lot of technology in future and competition will grow eventually. However, it never realised that it could take about ten years to reach that stage by its competitors and till then, Kodak could have dominated the film market easily. But, Kodak continued with its chemical business. Gradually, the digital era began in the film and photography industry and Kodak could not keep pace with the changing demands of its customers and hence, as a result, became bankrupt in 2012. Thus, adaptability to the changing business requirements was the major reason of the loss of Kodak.
The life cycle of a product can be divided into 5 stages: start up, growth, challenges and turbulences, maturity and failure. The start up stage is when a product starts to sell in the market. In this stage, the sales market size is very low as people are hesitant to easily accept the new products in the market. Thus, Kodak started with huge investments and built trust among the customers by advertisements, research and development. It is followed by the ‘growth’ stage in which the product tries to make its space in the market and wins the trust of its customers. The product, Kodak is now acceptable by the people and people are using it at a higher scale. The promotional activities for Kodak are also being maximised for the growth stage. After expanding its market area, now, is the time to face certain challenges, which is the third stage 'challenges and turbulences'. This is the stage just before maturity and different strategies will be followed to keep up the position of the product in the market. In this stage, Kodak film stills owns its position in the market. Then comes the stage which maximizes the profits and forms a good reputation of the product in the market. This ‘maturity’ stage gives Kodak a sense of trust among its customers and an edge over its competitors. Kodak is now leading the market with its own terms. But, this stage is the most critical, as profits are maximum in this stage. The highest profits are earned in this stage, which means that the profits will eventually decrease to an extent that they reduce to zero. Maturity is followed by ‘failure’, which is the last stage of the product life cycle. After a product has reached it ‘maturity’, its profits start to decline to an extent that they become zero. At this point, the failure of the product occurs. Kodak was leading the market when it got an opportunity to introduce digital photography to the world. But, it did not want to lose the position it had attained over the years, so, it let go the opportunity. With innovation in technology, its technology became outdated for customers and eventually, the business failed.