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As the examples in this book illustrate, there are numerous reasons why brands fail. Sometimes it is because the market they are associated with has become obsolete. Other times it is as a result of extending into an unsuitable product category. In some, dramatic, cases it is the result of a high-profile scandal which causes the public to boycott the brand.

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Often though, the reason for failure is more straightforward. Many brands fail because they are simply bad ideas that haven’t been properly researched. Occasionally these failures are the result of strong, established brands coming up with a new variation of their product. Understanding that new product categories should be avoided, brands stay within their original category but come up with a bizarre twist on the formula. But why should that matter? After all, branding isn’t about products, it is about perception. This is the new marketing mantra. And yet, there is no escaping the fact that at least part of this perception centres around the product itself.

The cleverest brand strategy in the world cannot make consumers buy a product they don’t want. Or at least, it can’t make them buy it more than once. While it is true that the market leader is not always the best in terms of quality, it is equally true that if a product is truly bad or truly pointless it will be unable to find eager customers.

The real question is, how do bad products appear in the first place? If the consumer doesn’t want them, why invent them? Because companies still insist that they know better than their customers. It is certainly true that market research has failings of its own. As Henry Ford remarked on the launch of his Model T, “if I had asked the customer, he would have asked for a faster horse”.

The problem is that what companies consider sublime, the customer all too often treats as ridiculous. Bottled mineral water for dogs? Great idea, says the company. A joke, responds the customer.

Even some of the world’s most successful brands have been guilty of introducing incredibly bad products. For instance, in 1995 Microsoft came up with the idea of a ‘social interface” called Bob. The idea was that Bob, a helpful animated man with glasses (looking not dissimilar to Bill Gates), would provide help and information in a “conversational, social style.” To add to Bob’s personality, he was given a number of “friends” such as Rover the dog, Scuzz the sewer rat and a “friendly dragon”. The product was aimed at adults, yet no one old enough to tie their own shoelaces wanted to use it. Throughout this chapter similar failures are drawn upon in order to show that branding is futile if the consumer doesn’t like the product.

Source: Matt Haig, “Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Times,” Kogan Page, 2011

Republished by Marketing Now