To keep customers loyal to the business Cadbury introduce new products to the market as this helps

• Technology developments where new processing techniques have been devised:
• This could mean that Cadbury have decided to use new machinery that would enable Cadbury to produce a new product in as less time as possible and the quality of the product would be high as well.

• The need for a market extension abroad:
• Especially in Europe products cannot be transferred from one market to another without any research being done. Cadbury sell their products in many different countries such as, America, New Zealand and India this helps Cadbury to build a good reputation in countries abroad as well as here in the UK and be well known.

Recently (20th September 2004) Cadbury have launched a new product called “Snaps” this is obviously a chocolate product shaped like a crisp (curves) with crispy cereal pieces in there that make the product crunchy. Snaps come in three different flavours: Milk chocolate, Hazelnut, and orange snaps comes in a pack of 40 curves, which makes them ideal for sharing. Below is a picture of what a snap looks like.

Snaps product life cycle

I am now going to try to identify the product life cycle stage of Cadburys snaps, I think that Cadburys snaps is in between two stages: the second stage of its product life cycle, this stage is known as the growth and development stage and the third stage which is known as the maturity and competition stage. This is because Snaps have now been launched in the market and also it has been advertised through the television programme coronation street, this helps snaps to be well known to the customers and potential customers. Because it is being advertised the product is in the third stage of its product life cycle advertisement also increases competition in the market.

How snaps fit in to the Boston Matrix

I think that Cadburys snaps are cash cows in the market as the product is still new to the customers and it will take time for the snaps to settle into the market depending on how customers like or dislike the product. If customers like the product and it is popular and in high demand in the market within the next few weeks Snaps will become a star product, this is when the product has a high market share in a fast growing industry. However if unfortunately customers decide that the product doesn’t taste good to them then the product will become a question mark or a dog product both of these types of products have a low share in the market in a quick expanding market, if the product is a question mark there may be a hope for the product to go back in the market and be a success with the correct research and marketing strategies being done. But if snaps become a dog product then it may have to be withdrawn from the market, as it would be causing Cadbury not to make any profits.