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Historic Blunders: 50 Worst Product Flops of All Time

MULTIZ321

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Historic Blunders: 50 Worst Product Flops of All Time
By Michael B. Sauter, Evan Comen, Thomas C. Frohlich and Samuel Stebbins, 24/7 Wall Street/
Money/ USA Today/ usatoday.com

"Some product launches can be spectacular failures, and Google Glass, an eyeglasses shaped head-mounted device with smartphone capabilities, failed in such a manner several years ago. It was meant to be the first piece of technology to connect the typical consumer to augmented reality.

Google continues to attempt to find a place for the product, but its original launch was a definitive failure. In 2017, the internet giant announced the relaunch of the device to target to businesses rather than the general public, but whatever happens, it will be adopted by a meaningfully narrower audience.

Just like success, failure is part of doing business. Entrepreneurs and large companies often take big risks, hoping for success but not always achieving it.

These failures take many different forms. When a product doesn’t sell, when it is recalled or discontinued, or when it otherwise does not come close to meeting a company’s expectations or plans, it can be marked as a failure. While failures are expected, some can be so catastrophic they can lead to permanent damage to a company’s reputation, layoffs, and even complete financial ruin.

Sometimes, it can take years, or even decades for a product flop to disappear from the market. This was the case with Betamax a video format which Sony introduced, expecting it to replace VHS. Despite being technologically superior to VHS, Betamax lost market share until it eventually vanished.

24/7 Wall Street reviewed some of the greatest product launch blunders throughout history. Today, these product flops exist as case studies companies use to avoid future failure. They range from Ford’s Edsel in 1958 to 2016’s Galaxy Note 7. Many of these products led to losses in the hundreds of millions, and sometimes billions. In tech, film, the internet, the pharmaceutical industry, and more, these are the biggest product flops of all time.

247WallSt.com-247WS-475824-new-coke.jpg

(Photo: The Coca-Cola Company / Wikimedia Commons)


Richard
 

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They didn’t mention an epic failure I learned about in my MBA marketing classes. Sometime in the 1970’s, Sunsweet decided to chop prunes into raisin-sized pieces for baking. The product concept had apparently tested well, so well that they rushed the product to market with three major supermarket chains.

What they forgot to do was test the packaging. Big problem.

It turned out that the chopped prunes gave off an organic gas that caused the airtight cellophane bags they were packed in to expand. Pretty soon, Sunsweet was getting emergency calls from hundreds of stores describing “exploding prunes” in the supermarket aisles.

Needless to say, the company admitted that their concept testing had failed to test the packaging. Oops!
 

CanuckTravlr

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Re: the original link in Richard's post: What's with the stupid "up to 10" question survey to be able to read the USA Today article??? Ridiculous!!! This seems to be happening more often and I refuse to participate.
 

bbodb1

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How does this list not include the 'new and improved' Wyndham website??????
 

MULTIZ321

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Re: the original link in Richard's post: What's with the stupid "up to 10" question survey to be able to read the USA Today article??? Ridiculous!!! This seems to be happening more often and I refuse to participate.
Hi CanuckTravlr,

When I open the link in my Firefox Browser, I'm able to read the entire article without having to complete a survey. So I am surprised to learn that you were asked to complete a survey in order to be granted access to the entire article.
I can understand your frustration. Sometimes one is granted a certain number of "free" articles a month from certain publications (e.g., The New York Times, The Washington Post) before the majority of the article is locked behind a paywall until one subscribes. But it doesn 't sound like that is what you are describing. Not sure why it happened to you.

Best Regards.
Richard
 

CanuckTravlr

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Thanks for your reply Richard. It was not a rant against you. I am using Google Chrome. I have no problem with the one-question surveys. I have no problem when they are a single question or you have a limited number of articles in a month, which are quite common at a number of online newspaper sites, as you mention. But when I opened the link at USA Today, I could initially see the article and then it went blank and I got the survey. Said I needed to answer 1 to 10 questions to read the article. Unfortunately the survey was geared to US residents, because the first two were for products/brand names not offered in Canada, so had to hit "other" or "n/a". I figured I would have to answer the full 10 questions, so I just hit the "exit" button and then vented. LOL.

UPDATE: Out of curiosity I just tried the link again. This time it told me I only had to answer a maximum of 3 questions and If I had to answer all three, then I would not be asked another survey for the next 7 days. Lo and behold I answered the first question and was able to finally read the survey, even though my answer was still "other". Not sure if they were able to track my previous attempts or they had a lot of complaints and reduced the number of questions. Either way, the article was certainly interesting. Glad to see that the Edsel, the one besides New Coke that first came to my mind, was there.
 
Last edited:

Panina

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Historic Blunders: 50 Worst Product Flops of All Time
By Michael B. Sauter, Evan Comen, Thomas C. Frohlich and Samuel Stebbins, 24/7 Wall Street/
Money/ USA Today/ usatoday.com

"Some product launches can be spectacular failures, and Google Glass, an eyeglasses shaped head-mounted device with smartphone capabilities, failed in such a manner several years ago. It was meant to be the first piece of technology to connect the typical consumer to augmented reality.

Google continues to attempt to find a place for the product, but its original launch was a definitive failure. In 2017, the internet giant announced the relaunch of the device to target to businesses rather than the general public, but whatever happens, it will be adopted by a meaningfully narrower audience.

Just like success, failure is part of doing business. Entrepreneurs and large companies often take big risks, hoping for success but not always achieving it.

These failures take many different forms. When a product doesn’t sell, when it is recalled or discontinued, or when it otherwise does not come close to meeting a company’s expectations or plans, it can be marked as a failure. While failures are expected, some can be so catastrophic they can lead to permanent damage to a company’s reputation, layoffs, and even complete financial ruin.

Sometimes, it can take years, or even decades for a product flop to disappear from the market. This was the case with Betamax a video format which Sony introduced, expecting it to replace VHS. Despite being technologically superior to VHS, Betamax lost market share until it eventually vanished.

24/7 Wall Street reviewed some of the greatest product launch blunders throughout history. Today, these product flops exist as case studies companies use to avoid future failure. They range from Ford’s Edsel in 1958 to 2016’s Galaxy Note 7. Many of these products led to losses in the hundreds of millions, and sometimes billions. In tech, film, the internet, the pharmaceutical industry, and more, these are the biggest product flops of all time.

247WallSt.com-247WS-475824-new-coke.jpg

(Photo: The Coca-Cola Company / Wikimedia Commons)


Richard
I never heard of some of these products, bad marketing may have doomed some.
 
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