Product Mistakes

Prepared By: Feyza Yüksel&Gökhan Güçlü

Why do products fail?

Picked the Wrong Marketwould be if your team does not have the skills and resources

needed to win in a particular market

Takes Too Long to Enter MarketCompetitors have “out-gunned” you, your

customer’s needs have changed, etc.

Doesn’t Solve the Right Problemsmaking sure we’re actually solving the

right problems

Product is Not Good EnoughBad design is an example – both bad user-experience and bad

architecture. Poor execution also lands here – broken windows, sloppy implementations, poor quality. For this

branch to work, “product” is not just the product that your development team builds, but also your customer

relationships, distribution, services, etc.

Terrible Names

something went wrong…

Ford Edsel (1957)

Ford's 400 million dollar investment, released in

1957. It's design, engine, size and comfort was fit with

American cars, even it had some better features, it still

failed because of it's big brand competitors.

Clairol’s Touch of Yogurt Shampoo (1979)

Like many companies, P&G began emphasizing

the natural ingredients in its products in the 1970s to answer the overall “back to nature”

movement of the time. It was common for many shampoos to contain a variety of natural

ingredients, including honey, various herbs, and fruits. When Clairol, a subsidiary of P&G,

released its Touch of Yogurt Shampoo in 1979, however, customers did not take to associating

dairy with a hair product. The product was also confusing to some. There were a number

of cases of people mistakenly eating it and getting sick as a result.

Colgate Kitchen Entrees (1982)

Colgate launched Kitchen Entrees, a line of frozen food products, in 1982, hoping to

capture the growing market for ready-to-eat meals. While the idea seemed workable, it

flopped with customers, who got very confused about Colgate’s brand image. The

brand had been associated with hygiene and customers did not buy the idea that they

should eat food offered by the same brand whose products they normally used to clean

their mouths with.If you lose sight of your core values, people start to question the

goals of your company.

New Coke (1985)

Today's coke industry leader Coca-Cola, in 1980s, lost it’smarket share to Pepsi and

released a new producttastes like Pepsi: New Coke.

But after two weeks, New Coke withdrewed from the market and Coca Cola back

to it’s original taste.

Pepsi A.M. and Crystal (1989-1992)

In the late 1980s Pepsi-Cola Company introduced Pepsi A.M., a carbonated beverage with "all the sugar and twice the caffeine" as

morning soft drink.However There was no specific demand for a

breakfast cola-drink.In 1992 Pepsi came out with

Crystal Pepsi-Clear Cola.It wastasted very different from Pepsi : Without color, caffeine but addedsugar.But customers didn’t like it’s

taste.

RJ Reynolds Smokeless Cigarettes (1989)

With concern over the dangers of smoking at fever pitch in the

late 80s, tobacco giant RJ Reynolds set out to create a “cleaner” alternative. $325

million later, smokeless cigarettes were born.But in 4 months health organizationsfind out it’s not healthy andwithdrewed from market.

Coors Rocky Mountain Spring Water (1990)

In 1990s, famous beer manufacturer Coors

Rocky brand and took water with this brand on the market. But it does not want a new product

outside of Coors beer fans soon led to the deletion from the

market.

In 1990s, the company took out a tablet computer named

Newton and sold it minimum $700.This

tablet failed because of its battery life and

hard-to-read screen.But it also

inspired aspects of future OS designs.

Apple Newton/MassagePad (1993)

Cosmopolitan Yogurt (1999)

Cosmo applied a “Cosmo can sell anything” logic to

entering the dairy industry.this seems to be

fundamentally flawed of a extending the brand too far,

and misunderstanding audience . The yoghurts were even priced higher than competing brands.It

failed in 18 months.

Harley-Davidson Parfume (2000)

Harley-Davidson launched a perfume.The idea created a confusion in the masses. It wasn’t clear if it is meant

forbikers who don’t want to smell like bikers. Even the loyal

fans did not like the idea.HDhad learnt a branding lesson. More products did not mean

more revenue and overextending the brand meant

a short-term focus.

JooJoo (2009)

JooJoo was a Linux-based tablet computer. It

was produced in Singapore and sold at

same price with iPad-$499.But it’s

performance wasn’t as good as iPad.So productwas taken off the shelves

in 2010.

Kodak

Consumer’s brandperception prevented

Kodak to attach itself tochanging market-

competitors were caringmuch about innovation.

Digital photography, smartphones etc. were the mostimportant reasons for it’s

bankruptcy.

MSN Messenger (2013)

Users preferFacebook instead

of MSN messengersince video call

started in Facebook. It

handed over toSkype in 2013.

Nokia

Apple and Android crushed Nokia by their

updates andimprovement-Nokia couldn’t improve it’sown OS symbian and

tried Windows Phone.But still it wasn’t

enough and handedover it’s shares to

Microsoft.