From Concept to Comeback: Mapping Trends and Product Innovation.

Authors

Agrim Prakash, Virginia Commonwealth University

Original Publication Date

2024

Document Type

Presentation

Comments

VCU 3MT® Competition, held on October 4, 2024.

Abstract

Modern consumers often face a gap between brand expression and brand experience, leading to disappointment and what can be called “expectation fatigue.” This research proposes a six-dimensional framework that reimagines the product life cycle as a loop rather than a curve, offering businesses strategies to sustain excitement and innovation so that repeat purchases can feel as engaging as the first.

Transcription

Next, we have Agrim Prakash From Concept to Comeback, Mapping Trends and Product Innovation. Agrim is in the School of Business, and their advisor is Dr. Andrew LeVassuer. Before I begin, I'd like to preface this by saying that I come from the Henry VIII School of Public Speaking. And like Henry VIII said to his many wives, I shan't keep you for long. That being said, let me start by asking you a very simple question. How many of you have ever purchased a product online? Show of hands. Interesting. Now, how many of you have seen an ad, loved the advertisement, and then gone ahead and purchased something, and then you saw that it's not quite what you expected? Show of hands. I had this insight, too. And to me, it looks like buying a product online today is something like online dating. You see the pictures, you love it. You see the description, it's amazing. And then when you actually get the product in your hand, it's not quite what you expected. So, we identified that the problem here comes from the fact that products today have a gap. In advertising, we call it the gap between brand expression, what the brand thinks about itself, and brand experience, what the brand gives to us or what we as the consumers experience. While traditional models have mapped out that product life cycles may start with low interest and then peak into a bell curve where they have high interest and then lower interest as time passes by, what we have realized is that these products do not go through that cycle anymore. It is more of a loop. Think about your iPhone for a second. When it entered the ordinary world, it was an extraordinary product, and it changed the whole world. But when we got used to it and the product became more and more commonplace, what we got to realize is that it's not so exciting anymore and a world with the iPhone in it became the ordinary world. So in order to create a new and extraordinary world what Apple had to do was release the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S, so on and so forth. That change is what drives marketing innovation but as time has gone by it has become more and more difficult for advertisers like myself to express this ideology to the world because the consumer like you has become fatigued. It's a word that I coined and I called expectation fatigue. We have become tired of advertising messaging. We no longer enjoy listening to these advertising because we are so irritated by the AI ads and the countless targeted ads that come to us. So how can we fix this? Well, Using a six-dimensional model that basically controls how cultural dimensions work in, how financial decisions work in, and many other factors, we have created a framework that would allow mapping the experience of a product lifecycle into a loop. And the result? Well, the result is a world where people are as excited to buy their 17th iPhone as they would be to buy their first. Think about it for a second. Do you remember your first ever purchase of an iPhone and how exciting it was? Well, that's a joy I hope to spark in the future. Thank you for your time.

Rights

© The Author