In the company's projection of their product line’s likely success, what assumptions do you believe they have made, and do you agree with all of them?
MINI-CASE
New Product Development and Product Life Cycle
A huge highly, regarded consumer package goods firm wishes to branch into pet food. The company knows a lot about packaging, communications, and pricing. It has a great reputation in trade so the channel partners should be supportive. It figures that selling pet food can't be all that different from their current strength.
The company is beginning with cat food. It is developing product lines currently and plans to launch within 6 months. About a year after that, they will follow with their dog line. The company has talked about developing foods for other pets (ferrets, snakes, and hamsters), but to date, no firmer plans have been made.
The brand is going to be called Wild Foods and the new-to-the-world feature that the brand will offer is that these canned goods will comprise wild animals. Instead of cat food being the same meats eaten by their owners (e.g., beef, turkey, chicken, tuna), the foodstuffs will be mice, rats, crows, and pigeons (the companies first recipes).
The company expects the new pet food line to be wildly received by pet owners - they expect that pet owners will say, “Finally! A company that knows what my cat wants to eat!” The company also thinks it will earn huge points from people concerned with the environment, given that they are creating a useful by-product of large populations of some unpopular animals usually regarding as vermin or pests.
CASE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- In the company's projection of their product line’s likely success, what assumptions do you believe they have made, and do you agree with all of them?
- What kinds of pre-launch marketing questions about any of the 4Ps do you have?
- What kinds of
marketing research would you suggest for them to address your concerns?
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