Any highly successful and well-received offering that you put on the market transitions from an Infatuation Interval to the Entitlement Period, barring those that create a permanent infatuation.
During the Infatuation Interval, consumers are fixated on the offering’s novelty, seduced by its perceived benefits, and blinded to its potential shortcomings. As the veil of infatuation wears off, consumers gradually take ownership of the offering, that is to say, they will no longer consider themselves privileged but rather fully entitled to it. The perception of ownership passes from provider to consumer.
Consumers feel that they now possess full rights of ownership for the offering.
This is the start of the Entitlement Period, in which consumers will take notice of and express all the things that could make the offering even better for them. And you have to be careful here: if you let your consumers linger too long in the Entitlement Period without heeding their suggestions or demands, they will at some point turn away from your offering altogether. That is the danger of stopping to innovate, especially in today’s environment of accelerated life cycles, market convergence, and relentless inundation of consumers by an overabundance of offerings—all of which puts immense pressure on your offering to retain the attention of consumers.
