This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.
Any company bringing out a new product knows that there is an incredible mixture of anticipation and nervousness involved with it.
Of course, it can all go wrong very easily for a number of reasons. For example, the following new products were all heavily hyped but it seems that no one wanted to buy them…
The Ford Edsel is a Complete Disaster
The history of car production is filled with expensive flops but few were as spectacularly unsuccessful as the Ford Edsel. This vehicle was made from 1958 to 1960 but sold so badly that the manufacturer lost millions of dollars on it. In fact, the word Edsel became linked to the idea of failure in the popular culture of the time due to this massive flop. So what went wrong with what Ford thought was the perfect product for the time? There are numerous different theories about why it sold so poorly, from poor workmanship to high pricing and bad timing. However, perhaps the biggest problem was that they spent an incredible sum of money on a new product without testing public opinion on it. It seems incredible now to think that they spent millions on it and launched a massive marketing campaign without even checking whether it was what people wanted. With the help of a field sales agency you can get a new product out with the best possible chance of the people you want finding out about it.
The Microsoft Zune Sinks Without Trace
While it has launched many hugely successful products, Microsoft has also had its share of disasters as well. The Zune was the technology company’s attempt at competing with the Apple iPod. In the end, when it was discontinued in 2011 the Zune didn’t even make it onto the list of the top 5 best selling portable music devices in the US. So what went wrong that meant that one of the world’s biggest and most successful businesses made such a mess of their new product? Perhaps it was simply a question of bad timing, as the trend was for people to listen to music on their phones not long after this device was launched in 2006. Early technical problems didn’t help and the product just fizzled out without ever capturing the public imagination.
Cosmopolitan Yogurt Takes the Brand too Far
Perhaps you don’t even remember the weird time when Cosmopolitan magazine decided to bring out yogurt. The magazine sells millions in dozens of languages over the world so surely they could sell some dairy products as well? This disastrous attempt to reach the Cosmo brand into other areas lasted for only 18 months, before the yogurt line was discontinued. Apparently, the idea behind this new product came from a survey that said that 65% of Brits used food like yogurt in the bedroom. Looking back, it seems like a pretty flimsy reason for thinking that people would rush out to buy Cosmopolitan Yogurt.
Clairol Touch of Yogurt Shampoo Confuses People
Another yogurt related product that went down like a lead balloon was this shampoo under the Clairol brand. It was released in 1979 but bombed spectacularly. It was meant to meet the growing demand at the time for natural products but people didn’t really want to put dairy products on their hair. The fact that the word yogurt was the most obvious part of the packaging meant that some people even tried to eat it rather than put it on their hair. The problem in this case again seems to come down to the company not doing their homework to see whether people really wanted it. The likes of a professional product sampling agency can make sure that a new product has the right level of demand for it.
Crystal Pepsi Didn’t Win Over Drinkers
There have been plenty of new soda products that have flopped. New Coke is without doubt one of the most famous examples but their rivals Pepsi also suffered the same fate with Crystal Pepsi. This was a clear and caffeine free drink which looked for a while like it might rule the world. It even started off so well that Coca Cola rushed out Tab Clear to challenge with it. However, decent initial sales fell away once people realised that it wasn’t very different the original Pepsi. In this case, the company had done work on gauging public demand but Pepsi executives have since admitted that they didn’t pay enough attention to making the product taste as good as possible. It seems like an incredible mistake to make but it shows how easy it is to forget about any one of the essential parts of a new product. Having said that, there are rumours that Crystal Pepsi could be back on the market before too long.