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A Consumer‐Based Approach to Designing Product Line Extensions
Author(s) -
Green Paul E.,
Krieger Abba M.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
journal of product innovation management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1540-5885
pISSN - 0737-6782
DOI - 10.1111/1540-5885.410028
Subject(s) - cannibalization , heuristics , product line , product (mathematics) , variety (cybernetics) , line (geometry) , computer science , marketing , industrial organization , business , mathematics , manufacturing engineering , engineering , artificial intelligence , geometry , operating system
A high proportion of new product introductions entail line extensions (e.g., new flavors, sizes, convenience packs, features) rather than totally new products. An attendant problem with line extending involves the possibility of cannibalization of the firm's current products. Paul Green and Abba Krieger describe an approach for designing line extensions that employs consumer tradeoff data and a variety of search heuristics to find “optimal” extensions that explicitly consider the cannibalization of current offerings. The methodology is applied to a case in which an agricultural chemicals firm is introducing a new soybean herbicide.