Top 7 Products That Failed in the Market

                        

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The word 'expansion' in marketing has a very complex meaning to it. Not only does it carries the name of the brand with it, but also involves its image in the market. While we see a lot of innovative products entering the market every year and making their mark in the consumer's mindsets, few had to bear the brunt of not being liked or accepted by the consumers.

 Here is a comprehensive list of 7 such top products that were launched with very high hopes and good intentions but failed to capture the market and eventually were taken down.

1.Colgate Beef Lasagne

Imagine a brand like Colgate which is associated with our oral health and hygiene, offering a whole new different kind of thing, not to Rinse but to eat! that too frozen dinner.

Yes, it was Colgate beef lasagne which was launched in the year 1982 and failed miserably in the market. The magnitude of non-acceptance was so high that even the sales of regular Colgate toothpaste plummeted and the company had a really hard time driving the sales back.

 

2.Pepsi AM

No wonder, we consume Pepsi at almost any time during the day except for the mornings. So, in 1989 Pepsi decided to hit this area. They introduced a new product concept called Pepsi AM that contained more caffeine than the regular one and was marketed as a morning drink!

However, they failed to understand that their brand was not positioned for this kind of category and undoubtedly the product was taken off the markets within a year. Since then, Pepsi never tried their hands in developing a specific morning drink as it would have meant diluting the established brand identity.

 

3.Mcdonald's Arch Deluxe

Ever gave a thought of having a burger with a grown-up taste? A burger that contained every kind of edible stuff, basically a subway burger. If not, then McDonald gave this option to their consumers by introducing a burger arch deluxe with mustard-mayonnaise.

More than 100 million dollars were spent on this, but it never worked out as the consumers didn't accept the product. The campaign is now one of the most expensive flops of all time.

 

4.Microsoft Zune

In 2006, Microsoft had decided to take on their most beloved rivals! Apple iPods. They launched their flagship music portable min player ZUNE! However, the quality of the product was not at par with the claims being made. The design, look and feel was also not attractive so that people could associate it as a portable music player. Still, the product survived in the market for 5 years and was finally discontinued in most of markets by the year 2011.

 

5.Tata Nano

Surprised to see this here? Well, you shouldn’t be.

Marketed as the 'World’s Most Affordable Car', this never managed to take off and there were multiple reasons behind it. That trade-off between price and quality was not worth the hype! The engine was installed at the back of the car which made it more vulnerable to accidents.

The space within the car was an issue as a family of 4 was not comfortable sitting in it. Apart from all this, the mileage and other quality assurances were never satisfactory and so Indian started seeing this car as a waste of money and eventually the Nano met its fate.

 

6.Google Glass

This product is not a failure of the product concept but it also serves as a classic example of what happens when people don’t accept the technology! In 2013, google had come with funny looking eye ware glass which was termed as head worn computer.

It could do anything for you, run apps, place calls, schedule meetings, record videos, click photos etc. all on your voice command. No doubt, it was a revolutionary product and the brand has huge potential in it but it was argued that this device could potentially play with the data of common masses and led to theft and breach of privacy.

This was it! And the product never really took off in the market (thanks to all the media controversies around it).

 

7.Mercedes Home Battery Pack

There are high chances you wouldn’t have even heard of this product, but in 2017, Mercedes-Benz had decided to take on the US home energy market. This energy storage pack was designed to store energy that people used to get from the solar panels installed in their rooftops.

A couple of things went against this product, the first being the limited capacity of the solar panels itself to store energy only using day-time, the other being that it was too expensive for the market and consumers never felt the need to have this in their home.

In just 1 year, Mercedes-Benz had announced to take the product off the market and dissolving the energy preservation subsidiary.

Written by – Harshit Sharma

Edited by – Adrija Saha