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Marketing failures

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There are tons of classic ones that they tell you on the first day of your intro-to-marketing class, like how the Chevy Nova didn't sell in spanish-speaking countries cuz "no va" means "doesn't go" in spanish.
 
Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
Originally posted by: dnetmhz
New Coke
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teh winnar is yuo!
Alternatively, RDRAM if you want to write about something geekish. Superior to DDR but failed miserably in mainstream because of legal issues despite better performance + marketing.
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The better performance is subjective. If I recall correctly, in real world tasks it was inferior...only beating ddr in some benchmarks. And when you consider it costs 3 times as much as DDR and the average dell user doesn't care what kind of ram their system has, it seems pretty obvious why it failed.
 
Betamax...Macintosh...

These are all products which were popular in their heyday but ultimately failed and now have very small market share due to bad business/marketing practices.
 
Excedrin PM was a big flop when it first hit the market. I met the guy who was in charge of the marketing campaign for it.
 
The Iridium satellite phone was a huge flop. $5 billion dollars spent, and only 10,000 customers before they pulled the plug. I don't think they lasted even two years.

Or the CueCat.
 
Are we talking in terms of good marketing that wasn't sufficient to back a bad product, or bad marketing which killed a good product?

If it's the former there are plenty of examples. New Coke is probably the best.

For the latter it's a little more difficult, mostly because bad marketing usually means the product was made forgettable. Hybrid cars are about as close as I can get. And if you're a Reno local there's an ad that used to run on the radio for a paycheck/title loan place which featured the line "if your only gambling problem is not having enough money...."
 
Originally posted by: CPA
The Ford Edsel is the classic of all marketing failures.
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Ahhh yes, the "failed Ford," with the push-button gear shift. Bad idea.

My uncle has one that he restored. It seems to run fine, and he loves it (don't ask me why, I haven't a clue).
 
Originally posted by: CPA
The Ford Edsel is the classic of all marketing failures.
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Was just gonna say that... I found out about it from WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE by Billy Joel. (You didn't think I was old enough to actually know Edsel, did you?)
 
Originally posted by: dnetmhz
New Coke
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This and BetaMax are the classic examples.

New Coke is an example of how marketing was completely out of touch with the customer base. They didn't taste test with a representative sample of consumers, and focused on the packaging and messaging instead of the end product.

Betamax is an example of a superior product that lost market share to VHS because of horrible marketing. The marketing dept. knew Beta was superior to VHS, and expected consumers to pay a hefty premium for a better-quality product. Unfortunately, licensors and distributors also had to pay premiums on the tapes, and as a result fewer movies were available for rental/purchase on Beta. Also, consumers could not discern much of a quality difference on all but the newest television sets, and so they didn't understand why Beta was so expensive. Sony, in effect, priced Beta out of the market.
 
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