| A | I know there are new product lines coming out all the time, so do you know what the product life cycle is before consumers move on to try the next new brand? The answer is, quite honestly, "no". There's an entire art (I'm not quite willing to grant it the status of science) around forecasting demand, shaping demand, and responding to demand. The free will of the consumer plays a role, but there are other major factors like seasonality, overall health of the economy, promotions, advertising, demographics, and sales channels -- think salons, retailers, Walmart, etc.). In the ideal world, the producer has an understanding of how to manipulate the consumer (this is called demand shaping) so that buying behaviors are predictable -- and hence, the optimal frequency of new product introduction can be surmised -- but real-world factors like those cited earlier tend to dilute the impact of demand-shaping efforts. Brands are intended to have lifespans measured in years, so they won't be introduced with a high frequency -- whereas new products come out seasonally. Your guess at three months for a new product is probably close to the reality. Producers tend to introduce new packaging quite frequently (a "new" product is generally a re-packaged existing product) and many of our clients introduce 100s of new SKUs in a given brand line over the course of the year (the 4 oz package, the 8 oz package, the package that has the words "Improved" on it, the Holiday package, the Kosher package, the Spiderman package, etc.). Each of these variants counts as a new product in the eyes of the producer. And ... given that there will be promotions and packaging for the winter holiday season, as well as for the summer, that leaves room in between for a bunch of campaigns and promotions. One way to approach your research might be to get in touch with a handful of these producers -- like Clairol, L'Oreal, et. al. -- explain what you're looking for, and see if you can get a "brand owner" -- this may be the person who has P&L responsibility for the brand -- to have a conversation with you. The other approach you might take -- that's free -- is to comb through their annual reports to see if you can find references to the number of new products introduced during the 12-month period. I will share that I've had remarkable success contacting these companies through their customer service web sites ... they really are quite interested in connecting with their user base, so that's another avenue you might try for your research. Best of luck with this. You're asking a very hard question that major companies would love a reliable answer to! (This response was written by Colin Masson's AMR Research colleague Alison Smith.) |