Praise for Brand Failures... “You learn more from failure than you can from success. Matt Haig’s new book is a goldmine of helpful how-not-to advice, which you ignore at your own peril.” LAURA RIES, PRESIDENT, RIES & RIES, MARKETING STRATEGISTS, AND BESTSELLING CO-AUTHOR OF THE FALL OF ADVERTISING AND THE RISE OF PR AND THE 22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF BRANDING “Every marketer will read this with both pleasure and profit. But the lessons are deadly serious, back to basics: real consumer benefits, value, execution. Read it, enjoy it, learn from it.” PATRICK BARWISE, PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING, LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL “Business books that manage to grab your attention, entertain you, and provide you with great advice, all at the same time, should be read immediately. This is one of those books. If you want to avoid being in the next edition of this book, you had better read it.” PETER CHEVERTON, CEO, INSIGHT MARKETING & PEOPLE, AND AUTHOR OF KEY MARKETING SKILLS “I thought the book was terrific. Brings together the business lessons from all the infamous brand disasters from the Ford Edsel and New Coke to today’s Andersen and Enron. A must-buy for marketers.” PETER DOYLE, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING & STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT, WARWICK BUSINESS SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK “Brand Failures is a treasure trove of information and insights. I’ll be consulting it regularly! ” SICCO VAN GELDER, CEO, BRAND-META CONSULTANCY, AND AUTHOR OF GLOBAL BRAND STRATEGY “Matt Haig is to be congratulated on compiling a comprehensive and compelling collection of 100 cases of failures attributable to misunderstanding or misapplication of brand strategy. Mark and learn.” MICHAEL J BAKER, EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE, PRESIDENT, ACADEMY OF MARKETING “The history of consumer marketing is littered with failed brands and we can learn from them. If you are responsible for your brand read this book. It might just be the best investment that you will ever make! ” SHAUN SMITH, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF FORUM, A DIVISION OF FT KNOWLEDGE, AND AUTHOR OF UNCOMMON PRACTICE “Books that describe best branding practice abound and yet the real learning lies in studying why brands have failed. Matt Haig has done a terrific job in analysing this topic, and I highly recommend his book to everyone responsible for brand creation, development and management.” DR PAUL TEMPORAL, BRAND STRATEGY CONSULTANT, SINGAPORE (WWW.BRANDINGASIA.COM) AND AUTHOR OF ADVANCED BRAND MANAGEMENT “Illuminating and amusing.” THE BUSINESS “Brand Failures is an entertaining and useful read.” FINANCIAL TIMES “Makes entertaining reading, but its message is serious and provides a valuable checklist of lessons learned.” MARKETING “A lively, engaging book full of ‘what not to do lessons’.” MARKETING BUSINESS “After reading this you should be able to spot a potential brand disaster a mile off.” INTERNET WORKS brand FAILURES THE TRUTH ABOUT THE 100 BIGGEST BRANDING MISTAKES OF ALL TIME matt haig London and Philadelphia First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2003 by Kogan Page Limited Reprinted 2003 (twice), 2004 Paperback edition 2005 Reprinted 2006, 2007 (twice), 2008 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publica- tion may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licences issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned addresses: Kogan Page Limited Kogan Page US 120 Pentonville Road 525 South 4th Street, #241 London N1 9JN Philadelphia PA 19147 United Kingdom USA www.koganpage.com © Matt Haig, 2003 The right of Matt Haig to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN-10 0 7494 4433 9 ISBN-13 978 0 7494 4433 4 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haig, Matt. Brand failures / Matt Haig. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7494-3927-0 1. Brand name products--Marketing. 2. Brand loyalty. 3. Brand choice. I. Title HD69.B7H345 2003 658.8’27--dc21 2003000966 Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt Ltd Contents Preface x 1. Introduction 1 Why brands fail 3 Brand myths 5 Why focus on failure? 6 2. Classic failures 9 1 New Coke 10 2 The Ford Edsel 16 3 Sony Betamax 23 4 McDonald’s Arch Deluxe 27 3. Idea failures 31 5 Kellogg’s Cereal Mates: warm milk, frosty reception 32 6 Sony’s Godzilla: a monster flop 35 7 Persil Power: one stubborn stain on Unilever’s reputation 40 8 Pepsi: in pursuit of purity 42 9 Earring Magic Ken: when Barbie’s boyfriend came out of the closet 45 10 The Hot Wheels computer: stereotyping the market 47 11 Corfam: the leather substitute 48 12 RJ Reynolds’ smokeless cigarettes: the ultimate bad idea 50 vi Contents 13 Oranjolt: the drink that lost its cool 55 14 La Femme: where are the pink ladies? 56 15 Radion: bright orange boxes aren’t enough 59 16 Clairol’s ‘Touch of Yoghurt’ shampoo 60 17 Pepsi AM 60 18 Maxwell House ready-to-drink coffee 61 19 Campbell’s Souper Combo 61 20 Thirsty Cat! and Thirsty Dog!: bottled water for pets 62 4. Extension failures 63 21 Harley Davidson perfume: the sweet smell of failure 65 22 Gerber Singles: when branding goes ga ga 70 23 Crest: stretching a brand to its limit 71 24 Heinz All Natural Cleaning Vinegar: confusing the customer 76 25 Miller: the ever-expanding brand 79 26 Virgin Cola: a brand too far 83 27 Bic underwear: strange but true 85 28 Xerox Data Systems: more than copiers? 86 29 Chiquita: is there life beyond bananas? 92 30 Country Time Cider 94 31 Ben-Gay Aspirin 95 32 Capital Radio restaurants 95 33 Smith and Wesson mountain bikes 96 34 Cosmopolitan yoghurt 96 35 Lynx barbershop 97 36 Colgate Kitchen Entrees 97 37 LifeSavers Soda 98 38 Pond’s toothpaste 98 39 Frito-Lay Lemonade 99 5. PR failures 101 40 Exxon 103 41 McDonald’s: the McLibel trial 105 42 Perrier’s benzene contamination 110 Contents vii 43 Pan Am: ending in tragedy 112 44 Snow Brand milk products: poisoning a brand 114 45 Rely tampons: Procter & Gamble’s toxic shock 117 46 Gerber’s PR blunder 119 47 RJ Reynold’s Joe Camel campaign 121 48 Firestone tyres 123 49 Farley’s infant milk: the salmonella incident 127 6. Culture failures 129 50 Kellogg’s in India 130 51 Hallmark in France 137 52 Pepsi in Taiwan 138 53 Schweppes Tonic Water in Italy 138 54 Chevy Nova and others 139 55 Electrolux in the United States 139 56 Gerber in Africa 139 57 Coors in Spain 140 58 Frank Perdue’s chicken in Spain 140 59 Clairol’s Mist Stick in Germany 140 60 Parker Pens in Mexico 141 61 American Airlines in Mexico 141 62 Vicks in Germany 141 63 Kentucky Fried Chicken in Hong Kong 142 64 CBS Fender: a tale of two cultures 142 65 Quaker Oats’ Snapple: failing to understand the essence of the brand 145 7. People failures 149 66 Enron: failing the truth 150 67 Arthur Andersen: shredding a reputation 152 68 Ratner’s: when honesty is not the best policy 153 69 Planet Hollywood: big egos, weak brand 156 70 Fashion Café: from catwalk to catfights 158 71 Hear’Say: from pop to flop 159 72 Guiltless Gourmet: helping the competition 161 viii Contents 8. Rebranding failures 165 73 Consignia: a post office by any other name 167 74 Tommy Hilfiger: the power of the logo 170 75 BT Cellnet to O2: undoing the brand 174 76 ONdigital to ITV Digital: how the ‘beautiful dream’ went sour 176 77 Windscale to Sellafield: same identity, different name 180 78 Payless Drug Store to Rite Aid Corporation 181 79 British Airways 182 80 MicroPro 182 9. Internet and new technology failures 185 81 Pets.com 188 82 VoicePod: failing to be heard 194 83 Excite@Home: bad branding @ work 195 84 WAP: why another protocol? 197 85 Dell’s Web PC: not quite a net gain 201 86 Intel’s Pentium chip: problem? What problem? 203 87 IBM’s Linux graffiti 204 88 boo.com: the party’s over 206 10. Tired brands 215 89 Oldsmobile: how the ‘King of Chrome’ ended up on the scrap heap 215 90 Pear’s soap: failing to hit the present taste 219 91 Ovaltine: when a brand falls asleep 222 92 Kodak: failing to stay ahead 224 93 Polaroid: live by the category, die by the category 228 94 Rover: a dog of brand 234 95 Moulinex: going up in smoke 236 96 Nova magazine: let sleeping brands lie 238 97 Levi’s: below the comfort zone 241 98 Kmart: a brand on the brink 245 Contents ix 99 The Cream nightclub: last dance saloon? 246 100 Yardley cosmetics: from grannies to handcuffs 251 References 253 Index 254 Preface When Brand Failures was first published two years ago, I had no idea how well it would be received. You see, in that respect, writing a book is very much like launching a brand. You can estimate its potential success, but you can’t know for certain how well it will do until it is out there on the shelves.