Lesson Plan: Growth of an Industry

Lesson Plan

Before Exploring

Introduce or review the four stages of the product life cycle from the download sheet Growth of an Industry. Make sure students understand that the product life cycle is a tool used by marketing professionals to understand the market and plan the marketing mix. If necessary, go over the four stages.

Outline the Opportunity

Distribute the download sheet Growth of an Industry. Direct students to the topic Canada's Wine Renaissance on the CBC Digital Archives website and have them view the clips titled "Ziraldo's Zap", "Free trade: crisis or opportunity?", and "VQA introduced". 

As they view the clips, students should fill in the worksheet, adding as much information about the wine industry as possible, noting the length of each phase and the activities each phase involves. Give extra time to review the clips, if necessary.

Revisit and Reflect

Using an overhead projector, display a transparency of the download sheet Growth of an Industry. As a class, complete the worksheet using the information the students have gathered. Where there is disagreement about time frames or strategies, discuss until the group arrives at a consensus.

Talk about how Canada's wine industry has evolved at each stage, and ask students to write their predictions for the future of the industry. What do they recommend wine producers do in response to their predictions?

Extension

Students can graph the product life cycle of another industry, such as software development. How does this product life cycle compare to that of the wine industry?