There are not only brand and product life cycles, also design is subject to life cycle phases which, when strategically deployed, add value.
More radical, innovative designs are most useful in the introduction phase. Once a brand or product is in the maturity stage, the target will be the majority of consumers in the middle of the bell curve, so designs are usually more toned down to appeal to the mass market - think HP or Dell. But is that the right approach?
There is always the crucial element of innovation required to keep a product in the loop, which might be lost when a company is focusing too much at the middle of the bell curve. Companies in mature industries often have a difficult relationship to innovation. On the other hand, innovator companies are often having trouble accessing mass markets.
The issue is the “chasm”, as Geoffrey Moore calls it. This chasm is bridged only by a handful of masters of the life cycle such as Apple. The trick clearly is to bridge the chasm, to be innovator and mature player at the same time.
