There’s a lot of buzz every year about new gadgets, such as the iPad and 3-D televisions, and their potential to revolutionize our lives. Some innovations live up to the hype, but when it comes to new products, great expectations can doom products that don’t measure up.Entrepreneurs and innovators, beware. There are more misses than hits when it comes to product launches. As many as 95% of products introduced each year fail, according to AcuPoll, a Cincinnati research agency.

That’s true even when they are backed by big companies and attached to well-known brands. Ever hear of Parfum Bic, Pierre Cardin frying pans or Jack Daniel’s mustard? These product blunders didn’t last long.

So what causes a product to fail? Sometimes quality is an issue. Ford Motor’s ()Edsel, which rolled out in 1957, didn’t live up to consumers’ expectations. Drivers were promised a car like nothing they had seen before. They had expected a vehicle that would surpass the quality of any other Ford offering, but what they got was a car that looked like all the rest. The Edsel was a sales and marketing disaster, and Ford pulled the car from the market after producing fewer than 3,000 of its 1960 models. The company’s losses on the Edsel were estimated at $350 million — more than $2.5 billion in today’s dollars.

Often the timing of a launch dooms a product. Apple () saw a major product bomb two decades ago, when the Cupertino, Calif., company introduced the Apple Newton and the MessagePad. The MessagePad was the precursor to the modern personal digital assistant and ran on Apple’s Newton operating system. Many believe the products were too far ahead of their time and weren’t user-friendly. Apple pulled the plug on them in 1998.

“Sometimes first movers aren’t the ones that become long-term winners,” says John Winsor, a co-founder and the chief executive officer of Boulder, Colo., ad agency Victors & Spoils.

Some companies blunder by straying too far from their areas of expertise. General Electric (), RCA and Xerox () all tried to sell computers over the years but weren’t able to compete with IBM ().

Others can’t topple category leaders. Sony’s () Betamax video player held no weight against JVC’s () VHS format. Barnes & Noble’s () Nook e-reader hasn’t yet overtaken Amazon’s () Kindle. (Apple’s just-realeased iPad is seen by some as a potential Kindle killer.)

Companies that try to stretch their brands too far often fail with new offerings that don’t jibe with their images, says Zain Raj, the CEO of customer-loyalty marketers Euro RSCG Discovery. For instance, people associate Coors with beer, not water, which is one reason its 1990 foray into bottled water didn’t work. PepsiCo () experienced its own fall from grace when it launched Crystal Pepsi in 1992. The clear cola, meant to be a healthy alternative, wasn’t a hit with soda drinkers. Just a year after introducing it, Pepsi pulled it off shelves because of lackluster sales.

Similar Posts:

Share