Voice-activated televisions: Product life cycle and marketing implications

Product Life Cycle of Voice-Activated Television

As the latest innovation in television technology, the advent of voice-activated technology represents a fundamental shift in the way consumers interact with their favorite products. Rather than utilize a remote control to operate a device, owners of Television Inc.'s new voice-activated TV set will be able to change channels, adjust volume settings, record their favorite programs and search for upcoming events all through the instinctual act of telling the machine what they want to see. As the forerunner within an industrywide process of progressive segmentation, Television Inc. has positioned itself to capture a dominant share of the emerging voice-activated TV market, but the company must ensure that its new product is expertly facilitated through the Product Life Cycle. According to the prevailing research on product development and marketing, a product experiences several phases during its so-called life cycle including the Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline stages, and the impact of product life cycle can be investigated from several distinct perspectives, including the main product class and various product models (Ostlin, J., Sundin, E., & Bjorkman, 2009). Integrating this conceptual framework into a new product's initial rollout is essential to ensuring its adoption by the consumer class, and the following explication of the voice-activated TV is intended to provide the management of Television, Inc. with viable recommendations for the rollout of this exciting advancement in entertainment technology.

The first stage of the product life cycle -- Introduction -- is perhaps the most crucial aspect of any new technology's initial market rollout, because generating excitement and "buzz" can ensure that consumers assign cultural value to the item. By positioning the voice-activated TV as the next major advancement in television technology -- just as high-definition screens replaced the traditional low-resolution displays, and flat-screens made big box TV sets obsolete -- the effectiveness of the marketing campaign utilized by Television, Inc. will likely determine its latest product's eventual likelihood of widespread adoption. To achieve this, the marketing efforts used to build consumer awareness as to the benefits of voice-activated TV must contain a subtle, yet unmistakable message of inevitability, suggesting that consumers must equip themselves with this new product because eventually everybody will own one anyway. The second stage of the product life cycle -- Growth -- is optimized through a company's concerted involvement in maintaining competitive advantage (Simon, 2010). By continually responding to the entrance of rival firms into the voice-activated TV market -- adjusting prices to retain consumer loyalty and offering superior customer service -- Television, Inc. can effectively maintain its position as industry leader while growing its market share slowly but steadily. The third stage of the product life cycle -- Maturity -- is forecasted to occur within 2-4 years, as the voice-activated TV model becomes the industry standard and the product's novelty has given way to market saturation. During the maturity stage, Television, Inc. would be well served to expand their operations overseas to bring voice-activated TV sets to expansive new markets at the height of the product's popularity. Finally, the last stage of the product life cycle -- Decline -- will occur at a point in the future when the concept of television technology undergoes a similarly fundamental shift, with voice-activated TVs being replaced by an even more intuitive control method. During this stage, Television, Inc. must be remain on the cutting edge, conceptualizing new TV formats in hopes of providing the replacement for its own product.