The Product Life Cycle Concept: Buried or Resurrected by the Diffusion Literature?

In Proceedings Academy of Management Conference, Technology and Innovation Management Division, Denver, Colorado

29 Pages Posted: 23 Sep 2008

See all articles by Paul Steffens

Paul Steffens

Queensland University of Technology - School of Management

Date Written: 2002

Abstract

The Product Life Cycle (PLC) concept is a well-known marketing strategy and planning tool. The concept is based on a simple biological analogy of stages over a product's "life," which is intuitively appealing, but unfortunately has limited utility in practice. For such a prominent marketing tool, the lack of both a focus on consumers and a theoretical basis is surprising. Diffusion of innovation models and theory offer considerable promise to provide a theoretical basis for the PLC. To date, diffusion models have been limited to explaining and forecasting PLC sales patterns. This paper consolidates this literature to develop an over-arching conceptual PLC model and managerial tool for consumer durables. The approach defines the new PLC phases based on some key consumer trends during product-market evolution, resulting in a four-phased PLC model: Innovation, Imitation, Repeat, Substitute. New marketing strategy implications emerge for each phase due to this additional focus on consumers. The model is operationalized using diffusion models, thereby providing a basis for both identifying and predicting PLC transitions. The types of data that need to be collected to fully operationalize and test this PLC model are discussed. The new PLC model does not ignore variations in PLC sales patterns. Rather, it provides an opportunity to explain such sales pattern variations and determine the underlying conditions that lead to different PLC shapes. An empirical illustration of the new PLC model is presented.

Keywords: Product Life Cycle, Diffusion of Innovations, Consumer Durables, Paul Steffens

Suggested Citation

Steffens, Paul, The Product Life Cycle Concept: Buried or Resurrected by the Diffusion Literature? (2002). In Proceedings Academy of Management Conference, Technology and Innovation Management Division, Denver, Colorado, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1264166 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1264166

Paul Steffens (Contact Author)

Queensland University of Technology - School of Management ( email )

Brisbane, Queensland 4001
Australia

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
404
Abstract Views
3,191
Rank
133,708
PlumX Metrics