Product Life cycle is one
of the most important concepts for marketers, the most critical theory that is
paid attention to while marketing any product be it a shampoo or a piece of
clothing. Interestingly, this concept is also applicable to an unconventional
product like Music.
It was only a few hours back when
I was listening to some Punjabi songs and one of my favorite songs (Blue
Eyes by Yo Yo Honey Singh) started playing. As I was listening to the song
my mind went back to time when this song had just got released. The first time
when my friends and I heard the song none of us liked it. Everywhere people had
similar views when the song had just released. The very next moment my mind
came back to the present and I realized that now the same people (including
yours truly) have had a 360 degree reversal of their views of the same song. I
noticed that this is what usually happens with Honey Singh’s every new song
(this also happened to the 4 bottle vodka from the movie Ragini MMS 2).
Ever thought why this happens?
Why Yo Yo Honey Singh’s songs do not impress us when we listen to them the
initial few times and end up becoming fond of them later? This is because Honey
Singh knowingly or unknowingly follows the concept of Product Life cycle
while producing his songs (the latter seems more pertinent here). I will
explain how this concept is relevant to his music.
There are four stages in the
lifetime of any product (we are taking Honey Singh’s songs as products here):-
Introduction stage
This stage is the most important
stage in the life of a product, in that most products in fail if proper
marketing is not done in this stage. In this stage the primary aim of any
business is to gain market share quickly. Full-fledged distribution of the
product is not done and until the product is accepted by the customers. This is
the stage in which people like me and you do not like Honey Singh’s songs as
they are newly launched in the market.
In case of music, a new album or
a song is released and its video is uploaded online, mainly on YouTube for
people to view it. The acceptance of the newly released song(s) is determined
by the number of views, the likes and the comments of the viewers. Word of
mouth, which happens mainly through social networking websites also plays a
major role here (this is where the concepts of Viral marketing
and Social Media marketing come into play). Efforts are done to
increase the awareness and monitor the acceptance. Investment is also done in
other forms of media like TV, radio etc. in this stage.
Growth stage
If proper efforts are done in the
Introduction stage, the product (songs here) reaches the Growth
stage. Advertising in order to increase awareness is the key activity
of this stage. Proper efforts would lead to the product gaining more market
share and resulting in stability in the market captured.
The main aim of any business (Music
producer) is to increase the awareness of its product and to gain more market
share in this stage. Yo Yo Honey Singh makes sure this by performing at various
events like award shows, college festivals and other events. This is the stage
when people actually start liking his songs as they catch up in the market.
Distribution channels like playing music in parties, clubs etc. are also added
in this stage. At the end of this stage Honey Singh’s songs have gained a lot
of fans and become leaders in the music market.
Maturity stage
This is the stage that comes
after the product has completed the Introduction and growth stages. This stage
marks the fast increase in sales that gain stability over a period of time.
In this stage Yo Yo Honey Singh’s
songs find a compulsory place in your playlists and parties are boring if the
DJ doesn’t play his songs. His songs are
the most popular on the well known charts and are there on every radio station
or music channel. This is when his songs are said to have captured the market
and their market share becomes stable.
Decline stage
This is the stage in which the
sales of a product begin to decline. The reasons behind this could be the new
and more innovative products that might have been launched in the market. This
is when most businesses start losing their market share to newer products in
the market. The only way to survive this loss of share is continual innovation
(what the world leading technology firm Apple is known for).
As you might have noticed that we
usually do not get bored of Honey Singh’s songs as he keeps on launching new
ones for us. Hence, we can say that his songs do not actually reach the decline
stage as the talented music producer and singer comes out with a new
product with innovative lyrics and exceptionally good music quickly after the maturity
stage.
So, we could say that Yo Yo Honey
Singh’s songs go through only three stages in their lifetime Introduction,
Growth and Maturity stage which in turn can be taken as a special case of the
Product Life cycle concept of marketing.
*Please share this post with your peers (peer to peer marketing, you see :P) through the social networks given below. Also please feel free to give your views through your comments. Many thanks.*
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