Dual Market(ing) in “Bio-Engineering High Technology” New Products: The Risk of Uncertainty and Failure

Introduction

Marketing of innovation is highly complex because the potential customers usually are unaware of the new product. The success of introducing new product on the market is a critical and risky issue (McCole, 2005; Hoffman, 2005; Amuel & Adiele, 2012).

The models of diffusion and adoption of new products have been theorized (Peres et al., 2010) and formalized fundamentally by Bass (1969) and Rogers (1995). However, their models often lead to errors due to its systematic and too theoretical approach, which therefore rise to models that are far from reality. Nevertheless, to explain the failures at the launch (Hauser, et al 2005) of new products (the majority of traditional models fail to explain this), different researchers have been able to get closer to another reality, “dual market(ing)”. This relative new approach brings a renewed respect to the explanation of the failure of some new products, especially those with a compound of “bio-engineering high technology” (all technologies with bio and engineering components like biomaterials, nano or biotechnology). In this way, several authors theorize about the presence of two independent customer segments, which have been the early adopters (earlier market), the later adopters (later market) integrated in the main market.

New products for new markets is a new resources (to replace currents products in the market) that possess a high potential of knowledge, competences and innovation, surrounded of risks that are caused by very high uncertainty due to costs and development times extremely high and therefore an increase in the chances of failure. This conduct us to think that the traditional marketing system is not adequate to analyze and study the roads that lead us to better understand the market, customers and the product life cycles, as well as the market and customers in general. Goldenberg et al. (2002) allege the existence of difference between the launch of the original product and the subsequent phases offered to customer. In the same way, develops and launch of successful new products is one of the most critical, risky and complex challenging (Hauser et al., 2005). Continuous with Goldenberg et al. (2002), they specifics that consumers in both stages of the product life cycle differ significantly. Therefore, we could think customers will be much different at the beginning and the end of the cycle, especially if it were a technology based product like bio-engineering high technology.

“Dual market(ing)” theory is based on the Moore (1995) works, which affirm that the chasm between early adopters and early majority, exist. They seek to minimize the communication gap between the two segments (Figure 1). This lack of communication can create a manifested difference in the rate of adoption of these two different segments, which can lead to uncertain and risky or even to fail.

Figure 1.

Change in customers as technology matures (Norman, 1998)

The bio-engineering high technology is based on a cross-sectional knowledge, which represents a particular challenge and is different from other more mature and more traditional market products. Customers and bio-engineering high technology markets are different from traditional products as well as their goals and needs. The transition from technology-driven to customer-driven products is reflected into the satisfied needs (Figure 2). However, it does not explain the abrupt slowdowns that can take place among the discontinuity between the introductory phase and the growth phase of the life cycle. The slowdown has been shown by Moore (1995), Mahajan and Muller (1998) and more recently by Goldenberg, Libai and Muller (2002).

Figure 2.

The transition from technology-driven to customer-driven products (Norman 1998)