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A central question for firms releasing successive generations of a product is whether they should pursue a market-driven approach and align own product releases to existing industry-level patterns. While an alignment with industry patterns enables firms to capitalize on general market receptivity, it may also entail dilution and competitive interference effects. Using data on the consumer electronics and automotive industries, we show that the effectiveness of such alignment depends on two additional timing-related decisions: the firm's release regularity for successive product generations and its preannouncement timing. Firms benefit from alignment to the industry only if they release successive generations in a regular manner (to create anticipation) and refrain from early preannouncements (to avoid competitive counteraction). For all other combinations of release regularity and preannouncement timing, not aligning to the industry rhythm leads to higher levels of firm performance. Taken together, our findings enable a nuanced view of the interplay of timing-related launch decisions that provides actionable guidance for managers., Author(s): Torsten Bornemann [sup.1] , Cornelia Hattula [sup.2] , Stefan Hattula [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.7839.5, 0000 0004 1936 9721, Department of Marketing, Goethe University Frankfurt, , Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 4, 60323, [...]

Facing growth pressures, firms attempt to target the large low-income consumer segment present in emerging markets. This multi-method study develops research insights regarding consumer-, retailer-, firm-, category- and country-level factors that enhance the acceptability, awareness, availability, and affordability of products that facilitate the low-income consumer adoption of and firms' introduction of new products for low-income consumers. Study 1 uses a qualitative grounded-theory approach by interviewing company managers and low-income consumers in India and Chile. Study 2, empirically tests an integrated multi-level model of several category factors identified in Study 1, combined with country-level factors drawn from the literature, using a unique 12-year longitudinal panel dataset of new product introductions in 27 emerging market countries from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. The research identifies consumer aspirations, region-based versioning, visible packaging and the product demonstrations as critical motivating factors for adoption of products by low income consumers. Consumers' knowledge of the product category, the concentration of branded products, availability of global brands, and the presence of traditional retail stores motivate firms to launch products for low income consumers in emerging markets., Author(s): S. Arunachalam [sup.1] , S. Cem Bahadir [sup.2] , Sundar G. Bharadwaj [sup.1] [sup.3] , Rodrigo Guesalaga [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.462395.f, 0000 0004 0496 9265, Indian School of [...]

Abstract. Problem definition: We study the practice-motivated problem of dynamically procuring a new, short-life-cycle product under demand uncertainty. The firm does not know the demand for the new product but [...]

Abstract. For information/digital products, the used goods market has been viewed as a threat by producers. However, it is not clear whether this view is justified because the used goods [...]

Abstract. We present an approach to forecast customer orders of ready-to-launch new products that are similar to past products. The approach fits product life cycle (PLC) curves to historical customer [...]

A new product's success in the marketplace largely depends on salesforce actions. Many B2B salespeople display conservatism when confronted with new products in their portfolio, such that they maximize their efforts to sell existing products before engaging in efforts to sell the new product. So far, it is unclear whether this conservative selling behavior (CSB) is harmful to new product selling performance, and how this behavior can be managed. Building on perceived risk processing theory, and employing multi-level structural equation modeling on a multi-source dataset, the authors empirically substantiate that salespeople's CSB makes their effort to sell new products more effective. Remarkably, such effort is then valued less by sales managers. The authors also find that CSB is a result of a risk assessment and evaluation process, in which internal marketing efforts (i.e., providing salespeople with information on the new product) determine the weight of perceived performance risk (i.e., new product radicalness), social risk (i.e., managerial new product orientation), and financial risk (i.e., long-term rewards). Managers looking to control the levels of CSB in their salesforce should carefully align their information support activities with the perceived risk dimensions of the new product selling situation., Author(s): Michel van der Borgh [sup.1] , Jeroen Schepers [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0004 0398 8763, grid.6852.9, Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, , [...]

Abstract. Firms often learn about their own capabilities through their products' successes and failures. This paper explores the interaction between learning about capabilities and product strategy in a formal model. [...]

We incorporate product demonstrations into a game theoretic model of price competition. Demonstrations may include product samples, trials, return policies, online review platforms, or any other means by which a firm allows consumers to learn about their value for a new product. In our model, demonstrations help individual consumers to learn whether they prefer an innovative product over an established alternative. The innovative firm controls demonstration informativeness. When the innovative firm commits to demonstration policies and there is flexibility in prices, the firm is best off offering fully informative demonstrations that divide the market and dampen price competition. In contrast, when a firm can adjust its demonstration strategy in response to prices, the firm prefers only partially informative demonstrations, designed to maximize its market share. Such a strategy can generate the monopoly profit for the innovative firm. We contrast the strategic role of demonstrations in our framework with the strategic role of capacity limits in models of judo economics, which also allow firms to divide a market and reduce competition. History: Accepted by J. Miguel Villas-Boas, marketing. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2449. Keywords: judo economics * Bertrand competition * marketing strategy * product demonstrations * money-back guarantees * return policies * product reviews, 1. Introduction When a new product is released, consumers face uncertainty about how well the product will meet their needs. Firms can offer free samples, in-store trials, access to reviews [...]

Numerous studies in mainstream product commercialization research have focused on the three main aspects; order of entry, relative product advantages, and firm competitiveness. However, the emphasis of the extant research base has not completely found it's way to investigating the concerns of speed of new product rollouts from a global launch perspective. Specifically, little attention has been given to study the details of the nature of sequential launch and simultaneous launch strategies. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the concepts of sequential and simultaneous international product rollouts through a review of the literature and theory-building endeavours. Although there is evidence of interest pertaining to the launch concepts and their consequences on product success, little research has employed a strong theoretical foundation that integrates both launch strategies in a single framework. Consequently, academics and practitioners are left with limited guidelines for determining the appropriate launch approach when introducing a new product to the global marketplace. To fill the knowledge gap, the authors develop a contextualized model that compares and contrasts the effectiveness of the respective launch strategies along varying degrees of environmental hostility, dynamism, and complexity. The authors highlight conceptual and methodological issues that are imperative for future empirical investigation. We draw on contingency theory and adopt a strategic alignment perspective to develop our conceptual model. Contingency theory has been established as a tool to identify a viable match between organizational strategies and environmental conditions to exploit opportunities and threats. .' There are a number of empirical studies that have used contingency theory and shown that environmental-strategy fit relates positively to performance. Firms, therefore, need to implement different launch strategies according to specific environmental setting (e.g., global customer preference, general competitive reactions, foreign regulation standards, economic conditions) when launching new products beyond national borders. Research propositions are introduced to describe potential contingency effects on the launch strategy-performance link. It is crucial, however, that the decision for employing a specific approach should not be determined solely on the basis of direct advantages (or disadvantages) of launch strategies. This study views that neither sequential nor simultaneous launch strategy, in isolation, is sufficient in explaining the overall outcome of launch strategies. Export managers should therefore take into account the contingency perspective for optimizing launch performance. The selection of a particular launch strategy will be a key determinant of the success of a new product's introduction into the market. JEL Classifications: M13, M31, N10, O33 Keywords: Sequential launch, Simultaneous launch, Foreign markets, Environmental factors, Contingency approach, INTRODUCTION The success of new products depends on adopting well-planned launch strategies. Due to the importance of the strategic launch of new products, the subject has received much attention in [...]

We study the pricing decision for a monopolist launching a new innovation. At the time of launch, we assume that the monopolist has incomplete information about the true demand curve. [...]

In this paper, we investigate whether information on the history of purchase intentions is useful in predicting actual purchase behavior. The research is motivated by two factors. The first factor is the empirical finding in the literature that measuring intentions just prior to purchase provides better predictions of actual purchase as compared to when these intentions are measured earlier. The second factor is the role of the timing of the formation of intentions prior to purchase. While one stream of literature based on preference fluency predicts that early formation of intentions is more likely to lead to actual purchase, the other stream based on the memory-based 'recency' effect predicts that formation of intentions just prior to purchase is more likely to lead to actual purchase. Together, these two factors motivate the potential need to account for the entire history of intentions prior to purchase. A canonical example of a market where intention histories are tracked is the movie industry, where 'first choice' movie watching intentions are tracked up to (and in some cases beyond) the time of release. Accommodating the history of intentions in an econometric model that predicts actual box office performance is challenging due to the differing numbers of observations for the movies, the large numbers of observations for certain movies, as well as the role of various time-invariant and time-varying covariates influencing intentions. We propose a two-part model where the first part involves a hierarchical growth model that summarizes the trajectories of intentions via 'growth factors.' These growth factors also reflect the role of the various covariates. The second part is a regression of the box office performance on the growth factors and other covariates. The models are simultaneously estimated within a Bayesian framework. Consistent with the previous literature, we find that including information on intentions improves our ability to predict behavior, with the recent intentions being the most informative. Importantly, when the history of intentions is accounted for, our results indicate that the data support the 'recency' literature--intentions grow over time leading up to purchase, and this growth has a positive impact on opening box office performance. While a linear growth model performs best for most movies, there e[x.sub.i]sts a subset of movies for which the quadratic growth model better captures the 'spike' in intentions just prior to purchase. Further, accounting for information on the history of intentions dramatically improves model fit and forecasting performance relative to when only the intentions at one point in time (e.g., the ones just prior to purchase) are accounted for. Keywords Pre-diffusion marketing * Choice intent * Hierarchical growth model * Box office forecasting, Introduction One approach to forecasting a new product's sales is based on a potential consumer's intention to buy. Accordingly, academic research has paid considerable attention to the study of intentions [...]

Two recent papers on managing new product diffusion decisions under production constraints reach somewhat contradictory conclusions. Ho et al. (Ho, T.-H., S. Savin, C. Terwiesch. 2002. Managing demand and sales dynamics in new product diffusion under supply constraint. Management Sci. 48(2) 187-206) show that it is never optimal to refuse to satisfy any customers when the firm has inventory of the product. On the other hand, in a very similar model, Kumar and Swaminathan (Kumar, S-, J. M. Swaminathan. 2003. Diffusion of innovations under supply constraints. Oper. Res. 51(6) 866-879) show that production constraints may in fact lead a firm to reject customers' orders even when the firm has the inventory to satisfy them (to slow down new product diffusion). We provide a counterexample to the results of Ho et al. (2002) and show that in their and Kumar and Swaminathan's (2003) models, it may be optimal to deny customers a product in inventory. We provide a generalization of both models that includes the ability to dynamically price the product (and also allows capacity and production costs to vary over time). We show that the unintuitive but optimal behavior of denying customers products that are in inventory disappears when the firm can dynamically set prices. Key words: inventory production; policies; pricing; production smoothing; capacity; Bass model; diffusion History: Received October 29, 2008; accepted August 12, 2010, by Candace A. Yano, operations and supply chain management. Published online in Articles in Advance July 15, 2011., 1. Introduction Management of new product introductions is critical for nearly all firms, and one of its most important dimensions is the management of demand during the introduction, especially when [...]

To evaluate the success of a new product, managers need to determine how much of its new demand is due to cannibalizing the firm's other products, rather than drawing from [...]

Our objective in this paper is to measure the impact (valence, volume, and variance) of national online user reviews on designated market area (DMA)-level local geographic box office performance of [...]

The article identifies and examines potential hazards of launching fighter brands, or products aimed directly at competing with low-price competitors. Hazards include competitive failure, cannibalization, and missing target customers.

The study examines 15 countries' constructs of consumer innovativeness, which refers to consumers' likelihood or ability to adopt new products. Findings show three dimensions of innovativeness constructs, namely openness, reluctance and enthusiasm. Country characteristics and consumer demographics are presented.

A study was conducted to develop a spreading activation model which will be used to predict where within a category structure consumers are likely to position a subcategory which they created to accommodate a new hybrid product. The results of the study provide evidence that accessibility is an underlying problem.

New product launches are often accompanied by extensive marketing communication campaigns. Firms' allocation decisions for these marketing communication expenditures have two dimensions--across consumers and over time. This allocation problem is [...]

In this paper, we propose an individual-level approach to diffusion and growth models. By zooming in, we refer to the unit of analysis, which is a single consumer (instead of [...]

The Bass model has been a standard for analyzing and predicting the market penetration of new products. We demonstrate the insights to be gained and predictive performance of functional data [...]

The authors study the takeoff of 16 new products across 31 countries (430 categories) to analyze how and why takeoff varies across products and countries. They test the effect of [...]

It is suggested that knowledge and the network strength of multinational corporations (MNC) are the two most important firm resources that influence new product outcomes. A survey of MNC headquarters reveal that the effects of cross-border knowledge transfer on new product outcomes depend on the levels of network strength and environmental turbulence.

The effects of product launches on product evaluations are investigated. Marketplace conditions and characteristics of the sponsoring company receive consideration and influence evaluation when product launches are described as future events. Sponsor information alone is considered and used in evaluations with past launches.

In the present study we investigate the relationship between foreign ownership and innovation activities using the firm- level data of the third Community Innovation Survey (CIS) covering twelve European countries. [...]

Internet-based interactive multimedia technologies enable online firms to employ a variety of formats to present and promote their products: They can use pictures, videos, and sounds to depict products, as […]

With a better understanding about the product market, industry practitioners can make more informed decisions for product specification, selection, and procurement. However, current approaches that support Architectural/Engineering/Construction (A/E/C) information acquisition do not provide a comprehensive market scan. While the Internet provides an ever-growing resource for product information, existing approaches have limited capabilities to make use of this virtual market. Therefore, the writers have developed a knowledge-assisted approach to specifically address the potential of the virtual market--help retrieve A/E/C product information, particularly information about different manufacturers, from the Internet. The paper introduces the building blocks of the developed approach, which includes domain knowledge utilization, information retrieval (IR) techniques, and strategies that incorporate domain knowledge into knowledge-supported IR approaches. Specifically, domain knowledge represented in the form of a thesaurus was used with query expansion strategies under the framework of an adaptation of the extended IR Boolean model. It was concluded from the prototype validation that domain knowledge can be extremely helpful when acquiring A/E/C product information from online resources using the developed approach. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2007)133:11(871) CE Database subject headings: Information retrieval; Information technology; Information management; Internet; Knowledge-based systems.

Periods of rigidity in the activities connected to the introduction of new products and the discontinuation of old product are documented using scanner data from a large supermarket chain in the U.S. It is found that new products are less likely to be introduced and old products are less likely to be discontinued on major U.S. Holidays most likely due to the higher cost of changing the prices.

The relationship between print and online newspapers in Washington, D.C. is examined with regard to how the newer, online newspapers affect the consumption of the existing, printed ones. Findings show that print newspapers' crowing out of the print is small in magnitude and does not threaten the print sector.

Four steps for successful organizational change include thinking, such as performing necessary research; setting the point of view, such as determining direction; planning the implementation, such as stakeholder consideration; and implementing, such as dedication to the mission.

In a two-cone Heckscher-Ohlin model with CES preferences and a continuum of goods, new northern goods increase the northern skill premium if they are skilled-labor intensive, and may increase the premium if they are unskilled-labor intensive. Thus, the introduction of new goods into US technology could have done more to increase the US skill premium than a closed-economy model would predict. I also explore how new northern goods affect the southern skill premium and what happens if they generate preference-induced reversals across existing goods. I develop a two-step solution method that simplifies comparative static analyses in the two-cone Heckscher-Ohlin model. Keywords: New goods; Skill premium; Two-cone Heckscher-Ohlin model; Preference-induced reversals; Two-step solution method JEL classification: F1

Strategies for optimizing the effect of goodwill and cost-efficient advertising during product launch are examined.

Advertising is one of the key marketing tools managers have at their disposal to influence their customers into purchasing a new product. The overall objective of new product advertising is to inform and persuade customers. Drawing up an advertising plan for a new product that is under the influence of diffusion phenomenon is not an easy task. Hence, research in this area is very limited. In our research, we use an empirically proven diffusion demand function that explicitly incorporates the advertising component. Our results suggest that optimal advertising is determined by the advertising effectiveness, discount rate, and the ratio of advertisement to profits. Depending upon the interplay among these factors, the optimal advertising takes decrease-increase, increase-decrease, monotonically increasing or monotonically decreasing shape. Key words: dynamic programming; optimal control; new products; advertising, 1. Introduction Advertising is one of the key marketing tools managers have at their disposal to influence their customers into purchasing a new product. For a new-product manager, the overall [...]

The process of advertising for a new product in segmented markets is discussed.

Market segmentation concepts related to advertising the introduction of a new product with Nerlove-Arrow's linear goodwill dynamics.

I examine the determinants of new pharmaceutical launches since 1980 in G7 nations. Both market and firm characteristics, and their interaction, are important in explaining entry. New drugs are 1.5 [...]