Product Failure: A Brief on New Coke Assignment Help
research product failures that have affected companies in the past and have cost them a substantial amount of money and may also have adversely affected their market reputation, tarnishing their brands.
Research the web and pick one such product failure for a Fortune 500 company and describe this failure.
This is a one to two paragraph exercise - do not go overboard, concise description of the company, product and major reasons you believe it failed.
Synthesize your position on 3 - 5 reasons or specific factors you believe most likely contributed to the product failure, using the product development process in the text; offer your analysis.
Suggested Failure Examples For Review
McDonalds Arch Deluxe Burger
New Coke
Pepsi Crystal
Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water
HP Touchpad
Colgate Kitchen Entrees
Sony Betamax
Ford Edsel
ESPN Mobile Phone
Microsoft Zune
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The Coca-Cola Company introduced New Coke as a reformulated version of the original product, which failed as product among the American consumers as well as responded drastically in the market share. This article discusses the possible factors that led to product failure and impact on overall consumer and market response.
Reasons for failures
The idea behind this reformulation stemmed from the theory about sustaining in the market in the face of intense rivalry with the Pepsi called "the Pepsi Challenge" by 1983. Owing to this factor, the market share of the company dropped from 60% to 24% in 1983. Public surveys, blind taste tests concluded the fact that American consumers had tilted in favour of soft-diet Pepsi rather than coke. At this juncture of time, in order to revive the eroding popularity and survive the challenge from Pepsi, the company conducted a top secret project called "Project Kansas". Under this project, marketing department of the company conducted surveys with samples. Among the participants, 88% were content with the changed sweetened flavour whereas 12% resented the change altogether. With this result the company decided to go for a change and ultimately introduced New Coke in 1985 altering the original formula. This change in flavour drew slew of criticisms from all across the consumer population as well as media. Acceptance of New Coke was on the decline among consumers and this setback of the Coca-Cola Company offered the Pepsi an overwhelming edge to reach out to consumers. Hence, the launch of a new product tampering with the original one turned out to be counter-productive for the company (Mimoun, Poncin&Garnier, 2017).The prime reason for the failure can be attributed to the fact that those 12% who were against the change were not paid attention to. The company blindly followed the 88% consenting segment without foreseeing the possible impact on market. Even in an attempt to revive the image, the company also resorted to popularize the product by advertisingcelebrities, which also failed.
Failure aftermath and its impact:
The backlash from consumers with regard to this change took aggressive form. The top brass officials who orchestrated this change were ridiculed and criticized in all forums. This huge setback was unexpected and impact wasirreparable. The customer base declined and market share dropped. The change was so severe in market that Coca-Cola stopped production of New Coke in the US. In 2002, New Coke was discontinued and withdrawn from the international market.The giant companies like the Coca-Cola infused a nostalgic sense of the "Americana" into the hearts and minds of Americans with its century old products. The company, failing to cling to its traditional goodwill due to lack of vision, not only blew on the face of this nostalgic sentiment but put its own reputation on stake also (Emeryet al. 2017). Although the desperate and timely introduction of "Coke Classic"with original formula helped restore lost glory as well as customer satisfaction, the failure of New Coke is perceived as the history's biggest advertising failure till date.
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