Test Marketing
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Any form of test marketing has its drawbacks. Marketers of food products often use taste testing as a way of predicting consumer behavior with reference to the new product, and this approach has its dangers as well. People select foods based on personal preferences, and when we are talking about foodstuffs, we are really talking about personal preferences over group preferences. That is, each person has his or her own particular likes and dislikes, and some products will appeal to them and some will not. There is not always a clear population dedicated to a certain taste as there might be for other products. To be effective in predicting consumer behavior, a taste test must have a very large base population taking the test to give a good idea of the percentage of the consumer population that will be interested in the product.For that matter, the market must understand that it is difficult to ascertain from a taste test what percentage of the population would be attracted to the product. When a taste test is held in a supermarket, a certain percentage of those taking the test will like the product and a certain percentage will not. This does not indicate the percentage of the population as a whole that likes or does not like the product, however. If the product is, say, chili, only those people who have some might already like chili will take the taste test in the first place. A larger group will shy away from the test because they simply do not like chili under an
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he product on the shelf, packaging that attracts the eye, and similar means to inform the public in the store.
The product life cycle concept derives from biological constructs, given that organisms such as human beings have a life cycle ranging from birth to death, with clear if flexible stages between the two. The product life cycle concept depicts new products as having a similar life cycle, with a pattern showing growth, plateau, and decline. There are usually four to six distinct stages in the product life cycle, and the following stages are usually represented when describing the process: design, introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. This model has been highly successful for many companies and has allowed them to plan the development, production, and reduction in production of products as the marketplace changes and the position of the product on the life cycle progresses.
As noted by Kotler (1997), the tool is best used for the interpretation of product and market dynamics. It is less valuable for making strategic decisions because the definitions of the different stages in the life cycle are flexible and the means for identifying when a product is in a given cycle are inexact. There is little argument as
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Some common words found in the essay are:
, Lean Cuisine, life cycle, Reference Kotler, product life cycle, existing line, taste test, product life, lean cuisine, consumer behavior, predicting consumer behavior, life cycle concept, lean cuisine line, generic drug, generic drugs, price kept, cycle concept, stages product life, Prentice Hall,
Approximate Word count = 2232
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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