Brand Failures_ The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time - Matt Haig [34]
The idea was to produce small servings of food for single adults – such as fruits, vegetables, starters and desserts – in the same jars used for baby food. However, when Gerber’s adult range was launched in 1974, the company soon discovered that the idea of eating products such as ‘Creamed Beef’ out of a small jar was not most people’s idea of a good night in.
Furthermore, the product was called Gerber Singles. According to Susan Casey in the October 2000 issue of Business 2.0, ‘they might as well have called it I Live Alone and Eat My Meals From a Jar.’
Whether the product had been market researched is anybody’s guess – and it is certainly hard to get a comment from Gerber itself. One thing is certain, however. Baby food for grown-up loners failed spectacularly.
Lesson from Gerber Singles
Think from the consumer’s perspective. Although Gerber Singles made sense from Gerber’s perspective (after all, the company could save manufacturing costs by using the same jars as for its baby food), no consumer was interested in buying a product which not only told the world that he or she couldn’t find a partner, but also gave the reason why (because the person was a big baby).
22 Crest
Stretching a brand to its limit
Born in 1955, Crest was the first fluoride toothpaste brand. Up until that point, the Colgate brand had a stranglehold on the market.
However, Crest’s parent company Procter & Gamble realized that Colgate had a weakness. No fluoride. This meant more cavities and more tooth decay. Furthermore, Crest could back up miraculous cavity-reducing claims with extensive research, which had been conducted by Procter & Gamble scientists at Indiana University. Endorsements by the American Dental Association, which commended Crest’s ‘effective decay-preventing qualities’. helped the brand gain ground on its rival, Colgate, and eventually saw it slide ahead.
However, the 1980s witnessed the fragmentation of the toothpaste market. All of a sudden, consumers were presented with an array of choice as new brands emerged. There were brands for smokers, tooth-whitening brands, mint-gel brands, baking-soda brands, natural brands, children’s brands, flavoured brands, brands for the elderly. Furthermore, fluoride was no longer such a big selling point. After all, in many parts of Europe and the United States it was now included in tap water. Cavities weren’t the issue they were in the 1950s.
Gradually, Crest launched more and more varieties. Most significantly, it released a tartar control toothpaste in 1985. Although this was the first toothpaste of its kind on the market it didn’t have the same impact as the introduction of fluoride had 30 years previously. One of the reasons for this was that Crest now had so many different toothpastes. The anti-tartar variety was just one Crest among many. Also, Colgate was quick off the mark. Not only did it launch its own tartar-control toothpaste, but it also started work on a toothpaste which would cover all of the perceived tooth care needs.
Whereas Crest kept on offering new variations on the same theme, thereby confusing the toothpaste-buying public, Colgate launched Colgate Total. This came with fluoride, tartar control and gum protection. In other words it provided everything within one product. Soon after its triumphant launch, Colgate was back on top of the market and eating into Crest’s sales.
So what happened? Why wasn’t Crest able to offer a Crest Total or Crest Complete before its rival’s product?
There are a number of possible reasons, and one relates to Procter & Gamble’s method of branding. Procter & Gamble’s brand strategy in the 1980s seemed to be: why launch one product, when 50 will do? Indeed, at one point there were 52 versions of Crest on the market. The belief was: the higher number of sub-brands the higher number of sales. So why risk threatening this scenario by telling consumers there