Brand Failures_ The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time - Matt Haig [1]
29 Country Time Cider
30 Capital Radio restaurants
31 Smith and Wesson mountain bikes
32 Cosmopolitan yoghurt
33 Lynx barbershop
34 Colgate Kitchen Entrees
35 LifeSavers Soda
36 Pond’s toothpaste
37 Frito-Lay Lemonade
05 PR failures
38 Exxon
39 McDonald’s – the McLibel trial
40 Perrier’s benzene contamination
41 Pan Am
42 Snow Brand milk products
43 Rely tampons
44 Gerber’s PR blunder
45 RJ Reynold’s Joe Camel campaign
46 Firestone tyres
47 Farley’s infant milk
06 Culture failures
48 Kellogg’s in India
49 Hallmark in France
50 Pepsi in Taiwan
51 Schweppes Tonic Water in Italy
52 Chevy Nova and others
53 Electrolux in the United States
54 Gerber in Africa
55 Coors in Spain
56 Frank Perdue’s chicken in Spain
57 Clairol’s Mist Stick in Germany
58 Parker Pens in Mexico
59 American Airlines in Mexico
60 Vicks in Germany
61 Kentucky Fried Chicken in Hong Kong
62 CBS Fender
63 Quaker Oats’ Snapple
07 People failures
64 Enron
65 Arthur Andersen
66 Ratner’s
67 Planet Hollywood
68 Fashion Café
69 Hear’Say
70 Guiltless Gourmet
08 Business cycle failures
71 Lehman Brothers (1844–2008)
72 Marconi 1896–2001 and 2005
09 Rebranding failures
73 Consignia
74 Tommy Hilfiger
75 ONdigital to ITV Digital
76 Windscale to Sellafield
77 Payless Drug Store to Rite Aid Corporation
78 British Airways
79 MicroPro
10 Internet and new technology failures
80 Pets.com
81 VoicePod
82 Excite@Home
83 WAP
84 Dell’s Web PC
85 Intel’s Pentium chip
86 IBM’s Linux graffiti
87 boo.com
88 Google
11 Tired brands
89 F. W. Woolworth
90 Oldsmobile
91 Pear’s Soap
92 Ovaltine
93 Kodak
94 Polaroid
95 Rover
96 Moulinex
97 Nova magazine
98 Levi’s
99 Kmart
100 The Cream nightclub
101 Yardley cosmetics
References
Preface
Brands fail. That is their destiny. Right now, somewhere in the world, someone in a very smart suit and an expensive haircut is in a boardroom selling an idea for a new brand and everyone in the room is nodding their heads as happily as people boarded the Titanic.
‘Wow, Tom, a talking waste disposal unit, that’s absolutely genius!’
Even if it was a good idea, that brand has never had more chance of failure than it does now. It will probably go the way of smokeless cigarettes and baby food for grown-ups – to that marketing graveyard in the sky. To understand how brands fail is to know where the hidden trapdoors are on the path to success.
Of course, brands come unstuck for all kinds of reasons. When Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux launched in America, it chose for its slogan ‘Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.’ It’s not exactly surprising that Electrolux hasn’t fared too well in that market. Today, judged by number of employees, Eastern Europe is a bigger market for the company than the US. In Europe as a whole the company employs three times as many staff as in America. Likewise, when General Motors launched the Chevy Nova in South America, it took a while for them to figure out why it wasn’t selling any cars. Then it dawned on them.
‘Er, Marjorie, you better look at this.’
‘What is it, Scott?’
‘Well, you know that amazing brand name I came up with. “Nova”. Well, it turns out that to the Spanish speaking world it means “it won’t go”.’
‘So you’ve just written “it won’t go” on the back of fifty million cars?’
‘Erm, yeah.’
‘And you didn’t think to check that out on Babelfish or something?’
‘Babelfish hasn’t been invented yet, Marjorie.’
‘Well, you know, there are such things as Spanish dictionaries.’
‘I know that. Do you think I don’t know that?!’
‘Calm down, Scott. Come on, it will be okay. Have a drink. I’ve got a can of New Coke if you want it.’
‘Oh Marjorie, what have I done?’
Rebranded as Caribe the brand formerly known as Nova actually had an okay future. Better than Edsel, Ford’s car-tastrophe that lost the company $2 billion in today’s money when they got everything wrong from the name outwards.
When Brand Failures was first published, I had no idea how well it would be received. You see, in that respect, writing a book is