Abstract

Terms launch and commercialization are used interchangeably and without explicit definitions in the literature making both terms vague. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the similarities and differences between these terms with a help of a critical literature review and illustrative case studies. It is shown that the terms are used to discuss the same broad phenomena, but research issues under them and the empirical data imply that the terms are not exactly the same. As a conclusion, clarification of the terms by utilizing the found differences is encouraged and new directions for research in marketing are proposed.