13 of the Biggest Product Fails in History

Sometimes, even with the most creative marketing and business minds around a product, it just doesn't deliver. It's how business is. Not every product that is introduced to the market will be a winner.

Here are 13 of those examples. Researched by our Los Angeles marketing company development team.

1. Ford Edsel in 1957. This car is pretty much synonymous with "product failure" in the marketing world. Ford invested a whopping $400 million into the car, which is a lot of money now but consider that much in 1957! Americans didn't buy the car. It was removed from the market in 1960

2. Coca-Cola New Coke- 1985. In the early 1980s, Coca-Cola was losing its market share to its main competitor, Pepsi. So, to win back consumers, they wanted to release a game-changer, New Coke. It was supposed to be a similar taste to Pepsi, which is sweeter than Coke. What is morAfter a few short weeks, Coke went back to their original formula. This was when they introduced a new name for their flagship product: Coca-Cola Classic.
e surprising here is that taste tests showed the product would do well; however, once it hit store shelves for real, it flopped.

3. Pepsi AM- 1989. In the late 80s, Pepsi believed they could reach a new market, morning coffee drinkers. They released Pepsi A.M. to appeal to breakfast cola drinkers with this breakfast variety of cola. The product was pulled from shelves after only one year.
          3b. Crystal Pepsi. In 1992, Pepsi tried to intrigue the clear soda consumers with their Crystal Pepsi option. It lasted a year and was pulled in 1993. We could get into Pepsi Blue but we'll hold off on that for now.

4. Coors Rocky Mountain Spring Water- 1990. Sometimes brands can have product extensions that work, while other brand extensions just don't work out. For example, this one. In 1990, consumers were not ready for a popular beer maker to make water.

5. Apple Newton- 1993. This is a great example of when Apple was in its "forgettable" days and not the world's most valuable brand. This device flopped because it was too expensive ($700), was tall and thick (the world wasn't ready for tablets) at 8x4.5 inches, and its handwriting recognition was horrendous. See this joke from The Simpsons.

6. Orbitz Soda -- 1997. The cool thing about Orbitz Soda was that it looked like little lava lamps, which appealed to kids. However, it tasted like cough syrup and the "lava" bits were awkward to have in your mouth with a liquid. It was pulled from shelves a year after debuting.

7. Cosmopolitan Yogurt -- 1999. The famous women's magazine, Cosmo, decided to make a yogurt back in 1999. The problem was that consumers were already satisfied with their yogurt selection in stores and the product connection wasn't logical, consumers couldn't figure out why they should buy the yogurt simply because they liked the magazine.

8. Mobile ESPN - 2006. Back in 2006, ESPN thought they had a great idea, offer a phone that would feature exclusive ESPN content via Verizon. The fail was so bad that it is considered one of the largest fails in mobile history. The only device equipped at product and service launch was a Sanyo flip phone that cost $400. ESPN shut down the service and moved on.

9. HD DVDs -- 2006. The race was on in the 2000s between the HD DVD, led by Toshiba, and the Blu-ray, led by Sony. Blu-ray won the race and it was mostly due to Warner Bros. it would no long support the HD DVD, in favor of Blu-ray.

10. JooJoo- 2009. During the emerging days of the iPad, which cost $499, another tablet computer was coming onto the scene, the JooJoo (also known as CrunchPad), which also cost $499. It emerged in 1009 and was gone by 2010.

11. Qwikster- 2011. When Netflix decided to split streaming and DVD services into two services, it spun off Qwikster as a DVD rental business. Consumers hated this decision. Netflix quickly retracted this decision.

12. Facebook Homescreen - 2013. Facebook tried to do one of the biggest mobile moves of all time with their "Facebook Home" service, which resulted in turning your phone's home screen into a Facebook feed. It flopped. For one thing, it was "too much" Facebook for users and it cost $99 for 2-year plans. It used up a lot of data and battery, too. It was quickly pulled.

13. The Nook- 2009. Barnes & Noble wanted to enter the e-reader market, which made sense since they were known for books! But they soon saw badly suffering sales, spun Nook off into its own company, and looked the other way.

Did you have a fun trip down memory lane? We sure did. Is your business looking to launch a new service or product? Then email Integraphix, a Los Angeles marketing agency, to help you make sure it is not a flop like these products.