Like all things in life, products have life cycles. Ideas are born, prototypes are developed, products are manufactured, products are put to market and eventually, products die out. It doesn’t have to be the end though.

Products tend to die out for one of a few reasons:

• They have outlived their usefulness.
• A better product came about.
• The product aged poorly, or otherwise showed flaws making it unusable.

How do you fix any these issues, breathing life into an otherwise dead product idea?

• Put a new spin on an old idea. This can be as simple as packaging. It can be as complicated as completely redesigning or re-skinning a product that everyone knows. If public interest is falling on a product, putting a new face, new slogan or new package on it may breed new life into your dying product.
• Find alternative uses for the product. Perhaps once, your product was a mighty paperweight. Now it’s been relegated to use as the much hated doorstop. Make the most of it! Re-market it as the Doorstop 5000XL, and watch as people fall over themselves to own one.
• Re-market to a new demographic. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Re-marketing to a new class of consumers may open new opportunities for the product, or for a host of products to fit the new demographic.
• Empower the brand with new music or other new media. Putting a powerful rif and a smoky voice to an aging product could associate the song with the product, thus triggering memories of the product every time the song comes on.
• Look to star-power to back your brand. Depending on how the star has fallen, this actually could backfire. Look for someone who is well known and popular with kids today and you will find new life in your product. It amazes me how a brand like CoverGirl seemingly falls out of existence every few years only to be boosted by stars like Rhianna who are suddenly the new face of Covergirl, and thus bring on a new collection of consumers to products that have been around often longer than it’s users.

If your products is at it’s end of life, look to those suggestions to rekindle an old flame. It may extend the life of a product that has otherwise lost it’s way. It may also completely jumpstart a brand or idea that has been ignored. If nothing else, it’ll bring out the nostalgia that consumers of the product feel for anything they once loved.