Even the Big Boys Fail
Do you remember the Chevy Nova? It did poorly in Latin America where Nova means “no go.” So G.M. changed the name to Caribe and sales took off.
Do you remember New Coke? Folks liked “Old” Coke. New Coke went into the dumpster.
Do you remember the Edsel?
This car kept me from getting a job offer from Ford. I almost didn’t get my travel money refunded. It was all very secret in 1957 when I was at the Ford Motor Company on a job interview.
All the Edsel cars were under canvas. I told the company executives that it would not sell. They sat in stunned silence and finally asked me why it wouldn’t sell. I told them it was too big. The economy was down and folks were looking for a smaller car. They were the days of George Romney and the smaller car.
If they had showed me the Edsel, I would have told them it was also ugly. And if they had shown me one with the gear shift where the horn should go, I would have told them it was silly.
In 1958 when they first showed it, I guess everybody agreed with me. It was a colossal flop. What was part of the problem? The market shifted while the Edsel was developed and produced. They were too late with the wrong product.
The funny thing was that I bought an Edsel in 1963 when I was in graduate school. I asked myself how I could find a reliable, low-milage car for a small amount of money. Well, an Edsel of course. I drove it for a number of years, a very good car, and I later sold it to another suffering graduate student.
Funny thing about the Edsel I owned. We broke down in Indianapolis and had to wait a few days for our car to be repaired. That is a great place to breakdown. Indianapolis is full of wonderful mechanics. The mechanic who repaired our Edsel didn’t like the design of the rear end and tooled me a reliable version for which he charged me $35.00.
A year or so later, the clutch went out. The mechanic said the pad and pad mounts were too small so he redesigned them and felt guilty for charging me $42.00. A very nice car which was easy to repair.
There are hundreds of examples of business and marketing failures. I mentioned in another tutorial about some of our failures in the dinnerware industry.
One case was focused on a niche that didn’t exist. Well, the people fitting the niche were there but they were not thinking like our marketing folks. They, like with Old Coke, wanted our current product, not the product we thought they wanted.
The focus groups were asked the wrong questions. “Do you like this pattern better than this one?” They would choose a pattern. But if we had asked, “Would you buy this product?” they would have said, “No.”
So we had a non-existing niche and an unwanted product.
Next: Finding a Niche Market
Do you remember the Chevy Nova? It did poorly in Latin America where Nova means “no go.” So G.M. changed the name to Caribe and sales took off.
Do you remember New Coke? Folks liked “Old” Coke. New Coke went into the dumpster.
Do you remember the Edsel?
This car kept me from getting a job offer from Ford. I almost didn’t get my travel money refunded. It was all very secret in 1957 when I was at the Ford Motor Company on a job interview.
All the Edsel cars were under canvas. I told the company executives that it would not sell. They sat in stunned silence and finally asked me why it wouldn’t sell. I told them it was too big. The economy was down and folks were looking for a smaller car. They were the days of George Romney and the smaller car.
If they had showed me the Edsel, I would have told them it was also ugly. And if they had shown me one with the gear shift where the horn should go, I would have told them it was silly.
In 1958 when they first showed it, I guess everybody agreed with me. It was a colossal flop. What was part of the problem? The market shifted while the Edsel was developed and produced. They were too late with the wrong product.
The funny thing was that I bought an Edsel in 1963 when I was in graduate school. I asked myself how I could find a reliable, low-milage car for a small amount of money. Well, an Edsel of course. I drove it for a number of years, a very good car, and I later sold it to another suffering graduate student.
Funny thing about the Edsel I owned. We broke down in Indianapolis and had to wait a few days for our car to be repaired. That is a great place to breakdown. Indianapolis is full of wonderful mechanics. The mechanic who repaired our Edsel didn’t like the design of the rear end and tooled me a reliable version for which he charged me $35.00.
A year or so later, the clutch went out. The mechanic said the pad and pad mounts were too small so he redesigned them and felt guilty for charging me $42.00. A very nice car which was easy to repair.
There are hundreds of examples of business and marketing failures. I mentioned in another tutorial about some of our failures in the dinnerware industry.
One case was focused on a niche that didn’t exist. Well, the people fitting the niche were there but they were not thinking like our marketing folks. They, like with Old Coke, wanted our current product, not the product we thought they wanted.
The focus groups were asked the wrong questions. “Do you like this pattern better than this one?” They would choose a pattern. But if we had asked, “Would you buy this product?” they would have said, “No.”
So we had a non-existing niche and an unwanted product.
Next: Finding a Niche Market
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harrycurtis
Premium
Interesting> I had a marketting Prof. who drove a GM X car so he never forgot the basics. Those were 80-84 cars that were brought out too soon, had many defects, were improved immensly by 84 but it was too late, the reputation of the brand was ruined. what was his name? Malek Daboul. Lebanese.
