Big companies must take big risks and sometimes spend millions of dollars in an attempt to find the next big thing before competitors do. Such attempts, however, are not always successful and in some cases epic failures.
Some of these flops seem like a matter of bad luck. Others are quite simply foolish mistakes the companies and marketers make. Today, these product flops exist as interesting case studies companies use to avoid future failure.
An estimated 40% of all product launches fail, but only a few fail in truly spectacular fashion. To identify some of the worst product flops of all time, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed products introduced after 1950 by America’s largest companies. To make the list, the product flop had to cause the major U.S. company that launched it significant losses and potentially damage its brand. Many of these products led to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in losses.
These are some of the worst product flops of all time.
1. Edsel
> Company: Ford
> Year released: 1957
> Company revenue when released: $4.6 billion
Sometimes an aggressive marketing strategy can backfire and cause a product to flop instead of flourish when it does not meet expectations. The Ford Edsel, named after Henry Ford’s son, was one such case. Ford spent a year aggressively marketing the Edsel ahead of its 1957 release. The company promised that this would be the “car of the future,” and dubbed the day the Edsel was to be available on dealership lots “E-Day.” The car, however, was a commercial disaster. It was considerably overpriced, disappointingly not futuristic and generally ugly. Ford ceased the car’s production after only two years. It lost an estimated $350 million on the car.
2. Touch of Yogurt Shampoo
> Company: Bristol-Myers Squibb
> Year released: 1979
> Company revenue when released: $2.5 billion
In keeping with the trend at the time of incorporating natural food ingredients into beauty and hygiene products, Clairol — at the time a subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb — thought a yogurt shampoo was just what the American consumer wanted. It turned out the company had grossly miscalculated, and Touch of Yogurt Shampoo quickly became one of the highest profile product flops of all time. Many consumers were apparently confused as to what they had bought as there were reported cases of people eating the shampoo and getting very ill. Perhaps Clairol should have known better. After all, the yogurt shampoo failure came only a few years after another failed shampoo called Look of Buttermilk.
3. Apple Lisa
> Company: Apple
> Year released: 1983
> Company revenue when released: $583 million
Long before a series of tremendous 21st century successes, including the iPad, iPhone, and MacBook, Apple was responsible for one of the biggest product flops of all time. In 1978, the company began to develop a computer designed for business customers. After spending $50 million over more than three years of development, the Apple Lisa was launched in 1983. However, the new Apple Lisa with its $10,000 price tag — equal to roughly $24,000 today — was out of reach of many would be consumers. After selling only 10,000 units, Apple discontinued the Lisa in 1985.
4. New Coke
> Company: Coca-Cola
> Year released: 1985
> Company revenue when released: $7.4 billion
The Coca-Cola brand soft drink was first sold to the public in 1886 out of a single pharmacy in Atlanta — the pharmacy sold an average of nine drinks per day. Since then, the brand expanded exponentially and enjoyed immense commercial success, branching out into several popular products, including Sprite, Minute Maid, and Powerade. In the mid-1980s, however, the company’s flagship cola drink began losing market share to Pepsi Cola. To better compete, the company changed the drink’s formula 99 years after its debut — but the move today is considered one of the greatest flops of all time. The colloquially named “new Coke” was met with public outrage and lasted only a few months. The company reintroduced its older formula rebranded as Coca-Cola classic. After its brief hiatus, sales of the original formula Coke surged when it reappeared on market shelves.
5. Premier smokeless cigarettes
> Company: RJ Reynolds
> Year released: 1988
> Company revenue when released:
Electronic cigarettes and hand-held vaporizers have surged in popularity in the last few years. These devices are not the first attempt by the industry to radically change consumers’ smoking habits. In 1988, R.J. Reynolds, now the second largest U.S. tobacco company, began marketing a smokeless tobacco product that was intended to be a safer way for its customers to smoke. The product heated tobacco pellets rather than burning them. Unlike many of today’s e-cigarette brands, the company could not claim outright that the product was healthier because that would have required the admission that regular cigarettes were unsafe. This was likely among the major reasons for the product’s failure. In addition, regular cigarette users were irked that the product lacked the familiar elements of a traditional cigarette — the smoke, the burn, and the flick. Another issue was the widely-reported unpleasant, chemical taste, which one user described as not unlike “burning plastic.” Reynolds sunk close to a billion dollars into the product, which was off the market within a year.
6. Maxwell House Brewed Coffee
> Company: Philip Morris Companies
> Year released: 1990
> Company revenue when released: N/A
When a poorly marketed product is released to meet a demand that is not there, success is bound to be elusive. Maxwell House Brewed Coffee was pre-brewed coffee sold in a carton with a picture of a hot mug of coffee on the packaging, a misleading visual cue for a product meant to be stored in the refrigerator. Adding to the product’s issues, the carton was lined with foil, and could not be microwaved. For a product marketed for its convenience, this was an especially problematic feature for consumers. The product was discontinued shortly after it was released.
The product may also have been ahead of its time. Maxwell House, like a number of other brands, now sells concentrated pre-brewed iced coffee.
MORE: See other product flops
MORE ON THE WORST PRODUCT FLOPS
A great deal of a product’s success can be determined by timing alone. In many cases, the products on this list were viable, innovative ideas that were poorly received because the technology was introduced too soon. This argument could be made for Apple’s Newton MessagePad, which failed abysmally even though it contained many technologies that are commonplace today. The same could be said of Premier smokeless cigarettes, which used a very similar technology to today’s wildly popular e-cigarettes, but were roundly rejected by the public at the time. Of course, each of these products had other problems that led to their failure as well.
Even companies with extremely well-established consumer brands must on occasion think outside the box to produce new versions of their product. Sometimes, however, these new products are so far removed from the core brand that shoppers reject it. McDonald’s Arch Deluxe cheeseburger, Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water, and Harley Davidson Perfume are all examples of brand overextension.
Sometimes, poor marketing can also hurt a perfectly serviceable product. Maxwell House Brewed Coffee, for example, contained a picture of a hot cup of coffee but was meant to be stored in the refrigerator, confusing too many customers. The Ford Edsel suffered from design flaws and from being overpriced, but the manufacturer generated such anticipation for the product it dubbed the “car of the future” that it was practically set to fail.
Of course, just as frequently as products fail because of bad marketing or timing, there are products that are simply inferior or faulty. Mattel’s Hot Wheels and Barbie computers, for example, were rife with manufacturing flaws, and the costs to fix the machines drove the computer’s manufacturer out of business. Unilever’s Persil Power detergent was discovered to damage clothing at high temperatures.
Revenue figures were pulled from parent company financial statements, or from the Fortune 500 the year the product was released.
24/7 Wall St. is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
