The New Product Life Cycle

John Moore over at Brand Autopsy discusses an interesting book called "Hip: the History," and its implications on the product life cycle.

Traditional marketing suggests that products move through the marketplace in a predictable fashion - first attracting innovators and early adopters, then moving to the majority, and finally being snatched up by the laggards while the innovators have moved onto something new.

One of my mentors back in school came up with a different model to describe product movement through the teenage market. He identified six or seven "influence" groups (such as goth, punk, hip-hop, country, etc.) and suggested that these fringe groups decided what was cool or "in." The majority of kids paid attention to what these outsiders were buying and eventually made the products a part of the mainstream. Of course, once the mass did this the influencers didn't find these product cool anymore and latched onto something else.

The book appears to have identified the same phenomenon in the population as a whole. It's not necessarily a new idea - Seth Godin has talked for some time now about the benefits of marketing to a niche of influencers. But the idea of "hipness" as a main component of the product life cycle puzzle is interesting nonetheless.

File this under more evidence for avoiding the big blob of people in the middle. They're too busy watching what the influencers are buying to pay any attention to you.