Blog 5: Fad Products

All new products go through a product life cycle, which involves an introductory, growth, maturity, and decline stage. However, not all products follow this exact pattern. The length of the product life cycle and the amount of time a product spends in each stage differs from product to product. Some products skip some stages altogether. For example, a fad product is characterized by a quick rise in sales and popularity followed by a quick decline. Instead of following the traditional product life cycle, fad products normally have a quick introduction phase and enter directly into the growth phase where sales are increasing. This is followed by a quick maturity phase, which is usually the longest phase for products, and then a rapid decline. Basically, it’s popular, then it’s not. The graph shown compares a fad product, to a fashion product (style of the time), and a basic product. As you can see, a basic product has a much longer and gradual introduction, growth, and maturity phase compared to a fad product. 

When I think of fad products I often think of children’s toys or games that many people are interested in at first, but quickly grow tired of. One example of this is the product, silly bandz. I remember when these first came out I would see people of all ages from kindergarten to high school, with silly bandz covering a good portion of their arms. To keep the bandz popular, the company came out with different themes and categories of the bands. I remember there were sea creatures, farm animals, and a variety of other options. I actually don’t think I bought any of these myself, but definitely accumulated some from my friends. But as quickly as these silly bandz became popular, they quickly died out and you seldom see anyone wearing them anymore.

Fad products can also be in the form of apps. Most people can recall the very popular app called “Draw Something”. It was a very simple game where you got to play against your friends in a game similar to Pictionary. You drew a picture of something and your opponent had to guess what it was. It actually was pretty fun at the time because you got to challenge your friends and allowed you to interact with friends when you weren’t with them (or sometimes you could even be playing while sitting next to your opponent). But eventually people grew bored with this app and moved on to new games to play with friends. Other fad apps include Words with Friends and Angry Birds.

The interesting thing about Angry Birds is that it expanded to be much more than just an app game. Marketers took it to a whole new level by exploiting its popularity and expanding their product line. They created stuffed animals, clothing, notebooks, food products and more all using the Angry Birds theme. It was actually reported that 47% of its publisher’s revenue came from consumer products and not the actual game itself. Product line and brand extension can be a great way to keep a product from becoming just another fad. It keeps the product relevant and can lead to the development of brand loyalty.

I think it's interesting that people often follow what everyone else is doing and that’s why products become so popular. We see our friend wearing silly bandz or playing a fun app game and we want to join in too. But when everyone else stops wearing the bandz or moves on to another game, we also follow suit. I think fad products are really based on everyone wanting to stick with the in-crowd by following what everyone else is doing.

References:

http://www.consulgamer.com/strategy-2/video-game-brand-extension-done-right/1924/
https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/cuttingedge/lifeCycle/03.htm
http://tommytoy.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f3a4072c970b017d3e4270f3970c-popup
http://www.pe.com/articles/bands-617959-teachers-school.html