Dr Paul Temporal, Brand Strategy Consultant, Singapore (www.brandingasia.com) and author of Advanced Brand Management. Matt Haig's right to be identified as the author of this work is asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Consumers make purchase decisions based on brand perception rather than product reality. In fact, many of the examples in this book highlight one of the key paradoxes of branding—namely, that as brands get bigger and more successful, they also become more vulnerable.
Classic failures
It therefore decided to scrap the original Coca-Cola and introduced New Coke instead. When Coca-Cola was launched in the 1880s, it was the only product on the market.
2 The Ford Edsel
The promotional brochure celebrating the September launch of the Edsel also promised a lot. In the mind of the public, the car simply did not live up to the hype.
3 Sony Betamax
For example, JVC and Panasonic introduced Betamax hi-fi VHS hi-fi formats only weeks after Sony's launch. For example, one AFU (Alt Folklore Urban) white paper on The Decline and Fall of Betamax refers to the statement as 'blatantly false'.
4 McDonald’s Arch Deluxe
However, the problems you encounter with the Arch Deluxe are symptomatic of an even bigger problem. Another interesting aspect of Arch Deluxe's failure is that the product was well researched.
Idea failures
In some dramatic cases, this is the result of a high-profile scandal that leads to the public boycotting the brand. While it is true that the market leader is not always the best in terms of quality, it is equally true that if a product is really bad or really pointless, it will not be able to find enthusiastic customers.
5 Kellogg’s Cereal Mates
In order to satisfy the consumer's desire for cold milk, Kellogg's company eventually decided to put cereal mats in refrigerators, meaning that consumers should have cold milk. As if the consumer wasn't confused enough, Kellogg added to the confusion with an ad campaign for Cereal Mates.
6 Sony’s Godzilla
What's more, a replica of the movie's star - a skyscraper-high green monster - was guaranteed to make a fantastic toy. 1998 was the year the film industry finally realized the influence the Internet had on the moviegoing public.
7 Persil Power
The company has avoided this route in the past due to the high risk. If the new brand had been clearly branded as 'Persil Power by Unilever' in 1994, all Unilever brands would have been affected and the damage would have been even greater.
8 Pepsi
Since it was not the first to market the cola category, Pepsi would never become the generic name. Which is one of the reasons Coca-Cola has used red for more than a hundred years.
9 Earring Magic Ken
Ken's brush with controversy was now over and Barbie could sleep easier knowing her boyfriend was still interested in her. But that doesn't mean parents will buy the new-look Ken dolls when they finally come out.
10 The Hot Wheels computer
To avoid such costly flameouts, designers should be involved in projects from the beginning, with engineers getting input on product usability and interface issues,” Business 2.0 advised.
11 Corfam
Clearly, if Corfam wants to become as big as it can be, it should be used by women's shoe manufacturers. When a product is unable to be the best in terms of quality or value, it faces an uphill battle to convince consumers of its merits.
12 RJ Reynolds’
RJ Reynolds spent a lot of money researching the health aspects of his two brands of smokeless cigarettes. Furthermore, RJ Reynolds' research drew opposition from other health authorities who published their own independent findings.
13 Oranjolt
14 La Femme
Available only in the Custom Royal Lancer model, La Femme can now be ordered for delivery in March. Dealers who decided to order La Femme found that the cars were unsold in the showroom.
15 Radion
16 Clairol’s ‘Touch of Yoghurt’ shampoo
They therefore came up with Pepsi AM, a drink 'with all the sugar and twice the caffeine.' If a consumer doesn't know he [or she] has a need, it's hard to offer a solution,” says brand expert and marketing author Robert McMath.
18 Maxwell House
Combo
20 Thirsty Cat! and Thirsty Dog!
Extension failures
However, while brand extension may increase sales in the short term, it may devalue the identity of the brand in the long term. That said, most of the brands boasting successful expansions have moved into related categories.
21 Harley Davidson perfume
Harley Davidson's appeal is inherently masculine and its customers take brand loyalty to extreme levels. Ironically, however, this quest for more products and to expand Harley Davidson's lineup went against how the company had built the brand in the first place.
22 Gerber Singles
Procter & Gamble's brand strategy in the 1980s seemed to be: why launch a product when 50 will do. Before cutting the number of Crest products, Procter & Gamble cut hair care again.
24 Heinz All Natural Cleaning Vinegar
The fact that both vinegar and Heinz are commonly associated with things you can eat made the product even more confusing for the customer. In other words, because All Natural Cleaning Vinegar was based on Heinz's existing, edible vinegar, the product only served to reaffirm the perception of Heinz as a food manufacturer.
25 Miller
While drinkers could go into a bar and tell the bartender, "I'll have a Budweiser," causing little confusion, if they said, "I'll have a Miller," the bartender would inevitably ask. As Jack Trout wrote in his excellent and influential book, The New Positioning, 'the more variations you attach to the brand, the more the mind loses focus.' Miller not only alienated his core customers, he completely baffled them.
26 Virgin Cola
Coca Cola and Pepsi managed to block Virgin from taking essential shelf space in half of UK supermarkets. Ultimately, Coca Cola and Pepsi's hold on the market proved too strong and Virgin Cola failed to make a serious dent in their worldwide sales.
27 Bic underwear
Production and distribution problems, combined with the fact that the product's function was completely different from that of the previous products, meant that Bic underwear met an early, and not very lamented, death. The other Bic brand extensions made sense because the company could leverage its existing sales force, distribution channels and production technology.
28 Xerox Data Systems
At the beginning of the decade, the company launched a personal computer or (as Xerox preferred to call it) an "informa". Part of the answer may lie in the company's admiration for Japanese business models.
29 Chiquita
This caused the company to get into debt because it did not sell enough bananas to cover costs. The company has been associated with bananas since the 1940s and that association is difficult to undo.
30 Country Time Cider
When the company tried to think of another logical extension, it came up with the Ben-Gay Aspirin. The only problem was that Ben-Gay was so strongly associated with the burning cream that it couldn't make the switch.
32 Capital Radio restaurants
34 Cosmopolitan yoghurt
"Every now and then, when you ask new employees in research about Lynx, it's the personality of the brand and not the fact that it's a deodorant that comes up," said the Lynx barbershop project manager, justifying the extension. Promoted as "block paradise," the salons were a post-modern cross between an old-fashioned barber shop and a video game arcade (arcade games and MTV screens were installed to prevent boredom from setting in while customers got their hair cut).
36 Colgate Kitchen Entrees
Invented in 1912, LifeSavers is one of the favorite brands of sweets in the United States. The firm concentrates on different flavors of 'hard roll candies' and produces almost 3 million rolls every day.
38 Pond’s toothpaste
After all, Frito-Lay was a brand that made people thirsty, and is therefore the exact opposite of lemonade. From the consumer's perspective, the fruity, sweet drink bore little relation to other Frito-lay products.
PR failures
If the company behind the brand acts responsibly and sensitively, the crisis situation can normally be defused. Rather than ignore the site in the vain hope that it would eventually go away, Allied Domecq and Dunkin Donuts monitored the.
40 Exxon
The McLibel movement took off because of what McDonald's did to Helen Steel and David Morris. When Steel and Morris stood outside a neighborhood McDonald's in north London on Saturday afternoon, they were barely keeping up with the demand for the 'What's wrong with McDonald's?' leaflet that started it all.
42 Perrier’s benzene contamination
Furthermore, although the company has set up a 24-hour hotline in the UK, Perrier has refused to see this as a global issue. Mixed messages were given, with conflicting and conflicting statements emerging from different sections of the company.
43 Pan Am
44 Snow Brand milk products
In addition, Snow Brand also reportedly withheld information about the exact nature of the incident. As a result of the incident, sales for the company took a dive and Snow Brand's president, Tetsuro Ishikawa, closed eight of its factories.
45 Rely tampons
But Procter & Gamble dismissed this research as "insufficient data in the hands of the bureaucracy." The CDC allowed Procter & Gamble to deny any product defect or violation of federal law.
46 Gerber’s PR blunder
Although Gerber's brands survived the crisis, most analysts now agree that the incidents were not properly managed and that Gerber's reputation suffered. As soon as news broke that some products had been tampered with, Gerber should have responded publicly and confirmed that the babies' best interests were paramount.
47 RJ Reynolds’ Joe Camel campaign
However, since the RJR documents are still available on the web, the negative PR damage has been a little harder to erase. Unlike recent online releases of documents by the tobacco industry and the House Commerce Committee, the Mangini documents are in a form that makes them easy to download and understand.'
48 Firestone tyres
The findings apparently confirmed that the tread separated from the tires when the car was driven at high speed. When Ford suggested that the company publish all the data about its tires, Firestone refused, insisting that the main cause of the accidents was the design and specification of the Ford Explorer.
49 Farley’s infant milk
After Farley's products were taken off the shelves, its main competitors seized the opportunity and made it more difficult for Farley's to make a comeback.
Culture failures
As the bumpy ride experienced by Kellogg's in India (the first example included in this chapter) indicates, companies that do not accommodate and acknowledge. With each product launch, Kellogg's chances improve based on its learning in the Indian market,' he says.
51 Hallmark in France
52 Pepsi in Taiwan
53 Schweppes Tonic Water in Italy
55 Electrolux in the United States
Surprised by the low sales, Gerber discovered that in Africa, since most customers can't read English, Western companies generally put pictures on the label of what's inside.
57 Coors in Spain
59 Clairol’s Mist Stick in Germany
Mexico
61 American Airlines in Mexico
63 Kentucky Fried Chicken in Hong
The secret to Fender's continued success lies in understanding the values that made the brand so popular in the first place - namely, craftsmanship and deep indulgence. CBS neglected the attention to quality and craftsmanship that had created the Fender brand in the first place.
65 Quaker Oats’
Snapple
The company then reverted to the new Snapple advertising strategy with artier ads that were more in line with the brand's original identity. Ultimately, Quaker failed to hold on to Snapple's brand value because it did not understand the essence of the brand identity.
People failures
The most obvious case of 'people failure' in recent times is the Enron scandal, where fraudulent activities were linked to individuals at the very top of the company. The higher up the individual is, the more he or she is seen as a representative of the brand.
66 Enron
The Enron scandal also had political implications, due to the firm's close ties to the White House. The long-term effects of the scandal will be felt for years to come, and the name Enron is already inappropriate and forever likely to be synonymous with "corporate accountability."
67 Arthur Andersen
68 Ratner’s
