Arend Vermazeren<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Perhaps nothing embodies the idea of a commercial failure as much as the Edsel, which was unveiled on Sept. 4, 1957 to the public after a yearlong teaser campaign. It was met with resounding rejection, as customers deemed the gas-guzzling, pricey car an ugly waste of money.\u00a0Three model years and 110,847 Edsels<\/a>\u00a0later, Ford pulled the plug on the Edsel in November 1959. Ultimately, Ford took\u00a0a $250 million hit<\/a>\u00a0(in 1958 dollars, or about $2 billion today) for the development, manufacturing, and marketing of the vehicle.<\/p>\n Paxton Holley<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n For some reason, Pepsi got it into its head that cola shouldn\u2019t be brown; it should be clear, while still tasting like cola but looking like a lemon-lime soda. That push for sensory confusion resulted in\u00a0Crystal Pepsi<\/strong>, a caffeine-free \u201cclear alternative\u201d to regular colas. SA_Steve<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Thursday, April 23, 1985. That\u2019s the date Coca-Cola announced a change to its secret formula \u2014 the first one in its 99 years \u2014 and a change that would forever link Coke with brand failures to come after it. Wikimediar<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Pre-made baby food is super convenient for parents: You get the meal in a jar; it\u2019s the right size for your 10-month-old; it\u2019s already pureed; and it\u2019s portable. Win\/win. eBay<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n If we say \u201cBic,\u201d the first thing that leaps into your mind is probably going to be \u201cball-point pen.\u201d Pencils and highlighters might be close runners-up, and, if you\u2019re feeling particularly thoughtful, you might mention disposable razors or lighters. You are not, however, likely to think of undergarments and hosiery. SA_Steve<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lifesavers have been around since 1912, but in the 1980s, Wrigley thought it might make a run at the beverage market with a candy-flavored soda. YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the mid-1990s, there was Budweiser and Coors, but while Miller Brewing Company had a variety of namesake beer brands \u2014 Miller High Life, Miller Lite, Miller Genuine Draft \u2014 it didn\u2019t have a flagship mononym brew like the competition did. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GqaEN7lj_u4 If you’re over 40 you probably remember the fiasco that was New Coke, but there are many other examples of companies who launched a new product without really thinking it through (or doing enough market testing.)\u00a0 \u00a0Nowadays they test the hell out of everything and there’s still the occasional failure, but none will probably ever Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retail-humor","category-retail-trends"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2473,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions\/2473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Arend](\"https:\/\/article.images.consumerreports.org\/prod\/content\/dam\/consumerist\/2016\/06\/edsel.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n2. Crystal Pepsi<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou\u2019ve never seen a taste like this!\u201d Pepsi promised, which was true, but not in a good way: many consumers were grossed out, confused, or just disappointed, with some insisting the beverage had a citrus hint to it. PepsiCo killed Crystal Pepsi in 1993 after only a year.
\n\u201cPeople were saying we should stop and address some issues along the way, and they were right,\u201d the man who conceptualized Crystal Pepsi, David Novak, told\u00a0Fast Company<\/a>\u00a0in 2007. \u201cIt would have been nice if I\u2019d made sure the product tasted good.\u201d
\nPepsi first\u00a0brought it back as a one-off nostalgia item in 2015<\/a>, before announcing on June 29\u00a0yet another limited-time resurrection of Crystal Pepsi<\/a>. For what reason, we do not know.<\/p>\n3. Qwikster<\/h1>\n
<\/a>The\u00a0well-chronicled debacle<\/a>, which saw Netflix hiking prices and\u00a0briefly separating its disc-rental arm into a different company in 2011<\/a>\u00a0before reconsidering, resulted in diving stock prices and a\u00a0massive pay cut<\/a>\u00a0for its CEO.<\/p>\n4. New Coke\/Coke II<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nIt wasn\u2019t originally called New Coke \u2014 it was a can of Coke with the word \u201cNew!\u201d on it, until 1992 when it was officially renamed Coke II.
\nThe company calls it \u201carguably the biggest risk in consumer goods history<\/a>,\u201d while everyone else just calls it a big, fat flop.
\nThe backlash from consumers was so immediate and so fierce, the company hurried to get the original recipe back on the market within three months of New Coke\u2019s arrival. On July 11, 1985, Coca-Cola held a press conference to officially announce the return of the old Coke, and admit how very wrong it had been.
\n\u201cThe simple fact is that all of the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on a new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the depth and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people,\u201d\u00a0said Coca-Cola\u2019s president at the time<\/a>, Donald Keough.<\/p>\n5. Frito-Lay Lemonade<\/h1>\n
<\/a>
\nWhat would be perfect to wash down salty snacks? A big, cold glass of lemonade. That must have been the thinking behind the Frito-Lay brand\u2019s unsuccessful foray into branded beverages with Frito-Lay lemonade; it didn\u2019t work out so well.
\nSomething about the Frito-Lay name just didn\u2019t sound refreshing to consumers,\u00a0Entrepreneur<\/em><\/a>\u00a0noted in 1998, and parent company PepsiCo dropped the product.<\/p>\n6. Tropicana carton redesign<\/h1>\n
<\/a>
\nWhen it comes to breakfast beverages, Tropicana learned that messing with its brands is not a good move. In January 2009, Tropicana came out with a new look for its cartons, including a clever cap that looked just like an orange.
\nClever or no, consumers haaaaaa<\/em>ted it. The product went \u201cpoof\u201d\u00a0by the next month<\/a>, and the original packaging reappeared on shelves in March.
\n\u201cWe underestimated the deep emotional bond\u201d loyal customers had with the original packaging, Neil Campbell, president at Tropicana North America in Chicago explained to\u00a0The New York Times<\/a>\u00a0then. \u201cThose consumers are very important to us, so we responded.\u201d<\/p>\n7. Gerber\u2019s single servings for adults<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nHowever, jars of mush \u2014 aside from maybe applesauce and Soylent \u2014 do not generally appeal to most adults. In fact, the list of people over 21 who have ever thought, \u201cI wish my beef bourguignon were all pre-mashed and then stuffed in a jar\u201d is infinitesimally small \u2014 and so was the market for Gerber Singles, one of 1974\u2019s worst ideas.
\nThe plan had been to sell the product to college students and young adults who had moved out of mom\u2019s house and might not be otherwise able to feed themselves. It turns out, young adults had plenty of other options they liked better \u2014 anything other than adult baby food, for example.<\/p>\n8. Bic Underwear & Hosiery<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThe women\u2019s underwear line, which included pantyhose, launched in 1998. It was \u2014 like all those other Bic products \u2014 designed to be disposable. The problem is, most women aren\u2019t really looking for disposable underwear. Nor are they planning to buy underwear from stores (or sections of stores) where Bic\u2019s other products are sold; at least not unless it\u2019s an emergency.
\nThe products \u2014 which never launched in the United States \u2014 quietly disappeared from overseas stores in 1999. We\u00a0found a pair on eBay<\/a>\u00a0recently, if you\u2019re still interested.<\/p>\n9. Lifesavers Soda<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSugar plus sugar \u2014 sounds like a sure thing for the go-go-go \u201980s, right? Not so much. Some folks found the fizzy drink too sweet, like drinking \u201cliquid candy,\u201d and the product disappeared into the sugary chasm from whence it came.<\/p>\n10. Miller Beer<\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSo in early 1996, Miller launched a new product, simply called \u201cMiller,\u201d which featured the company\u2019s trademark against a red and blue background on a traditional brown bottle,\u00a0calling it<\/a>\u00a0\u201cdifferent from any existing premium beer.\u201d
\nIt didn\u2019t go very well, coming up short on a company goal to hit 1% market share by the end of 1996,\u00a0Milwaukee Business Journal<\/a>\u00a0reported in 1997, and the company soon took plain-old Miller off the shelves.<\/p>\n11. Gap logo redesign<\/h1>\n
<\/a>
\nIn October 2010, Gap executives apparently figured out how to use Photoshop, or at least whatever crude graphics program came preinstalled on their office computers, with the resulting logo looking liked it belonged on a cracked plastic sign outside an anonymous office park warehouse, instead of a huge national clothing retailer.
\nEveryone hated it, because look at that thing \u2014 it\u2019s \u201cas bland and uninteresting as jeans and a black t-shirt,\u201d as we wrote then.
\nOnly two days later,\u00a0Gap scrapped the crap logo<\/a>, saying, \u201cWe\u2019ve heard loud and clear that you don\u2019t like the new logo. We\u2019ve learned a lot from the feedback. We only want what\u2019s best for the brand and our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n12. Kellogg\u2019s Cereal Mates<\/h1>\n
\nPortable cereal is not actually a bad idea. On-the-go breakfasts are popular. Cereal is popular. Putting the two together seems like a strong commercial idea and, indeed, your modern grocery store has a lot of different portable, single-serving options. Kellogg\u2019s 1998 attempt, however, hit the sweet spot of \u201cdoes not solve problem\u201d and \u201ctoo weird,\u201d and failed miserably as a result.
\nThe packages \u2014 containing a single-serve sealed bowl of cereal, a box of milk, and a spoon \u2014 were advertised as something to find in the fridge case, to make your family\u2019s chaotic morning easier. The thing is, cereal you keep in the fridge tastes kind of meh by the time you open it. And shelf-stable milk, while perfectly safe if properly packaged, continues to be a hard sell for most American shoppers.
\nSo Kellogg\u2019s managed to capture the worst of both worlds \u2014 soft cereal and warm milk \u2014 while making the product too high-priced and redundant to use at home and too cumbersome to take on the road.<\/p>\n13. Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water<\/h1>\n
<\/a>
\nCoors says its been brewing its beer with \u201cpure rocky mountain spring water\u201d since 1873, and in 1990, the company decided to take the alcohol out of the equation and just sell straight-up sparkling spring water.
\nDespite the growing popularity of bottled water, many shoppers were confused by the company\u2019s\u00a0first non-alcoholic beverage since Prohibition<\/a>, which featured a Coors logo just like its beer products. Coors abandoned the idea two years after launch.<\/p>\n14. Colgate\u2019s Kitchen Entrees<\/h1>\n
<\/a>
\nFood is something you are supposed to eat, and it makes your teeth dirty. Toothpaste is something you are not supposed to eat, and it makes your teeth clean. So you can get an immediate sense of why toothpaste-branded food was maybe doomed to failure.
\nFrozen meals were all the rage in 1982, and you can see why Colgate-Palmolive wanted in on the trend. Much harder to understand is why they thought the Colgate toothpaste branding would help sell savory foods. Nobody wants their toothpaste to taste like stir-fry\u2026 or their stir-fry to taste like toothpaste.
\nThey\u00a0did not last long on store shelves<\/a>\u00a0and quietly disappeared a few months thereafter.<\/p>\n15. Orbitz Soda<\/h1>\n
<\/a>Made by Clearly Canadian, Orbitz looked like a drinkable lava lamp: marketers touted the fruity soft drink filled with gelatinous spheres as a \u201ctexturally enhanced alternative beverage<\/a>,\u201d but many consumers just thought it was gross. The drink was shelved in 1997 a year after it debuted, while its name has been repurposed by a certain online travel booking company.<\/p>\n16. Frito-Lay WOW Chips<\/h1>\n
<\/a>
\nIf you don\u2019t remember WOW chips, consider yourself luckier than many consumers who actually bought them\u2026 and whose bodies did not respond well to olestra, the fat substitute used to reduce the fat content of these chips.
\nFirst introduced in 1998, Frito\u2019s new idea was popular at the beginning, with WOW versions of Lay\u2019s, Ruffles, Doritos, and Tostitos bringing in $400 million in sales. But by 2000, sales had dipped to $200 million, after many customers reported anal leakage caused by olestra.
\nA new warning was added to packaging as well: \u201cThis Product Contains Olestra. Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools. Olestra inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients. Vitamins A, D, E, and K have been added.\u201d
\nThe chips were rebranded to \u201cLight\u201d around the same time, and WOW disappeared, leaving only painful, streaky memories behind.<\/p>\n17. Keurig KOLD<\/h1>\n
<\/a>
\nWhile folks might love their single-serving coffee machines from Keurig, the company made a big mistake trying to compete with SodaStream. The Keurig KOLD was a soda-making machine that cost $370 when it was introduced in 2015 \u2014 and it fell flat.
\nAfter less than a year on the market, Keurig said\u00a0it would be discontinuing the product and offering refunds to anyone who bought it<\/a>.
\nThat is, if anyone actually bought it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"