Hi there, I hope you are all well.

I have a question for you, which I hope you enjoy.

Most of us know the classic story of New Coke and how it failed miserably.

I would like to have some examples of companies who have similar to
the Coca-Cola Company and it?s New Coke, tried to reinvent themselves,
but failed miserably. Now this is tricky ? I?m not looking for
companies/brands where the product reinvented clearly was of a bad
quality and therefore failed ? but examples of companies where the
product released didn?t succeed ? most likely due to the fact that the
product simply didn?t match under the brand umbrella. So in short ? a
case very similar to the Coca-Cola case.

I need to know the following information about the reasons the failed;

1.	Why did the campaign fail
2.	It must be an independent failing, and not due to things like
distribution, too high price etc.
3.	
4.	I hard facts proving that the product failed, wether this is market
research, sales numbers of the fact that the company withdraw the
product from the market.
5.	Again ? if you?re good ? it would be great if you could link me to
either copies of the advertising materials used during the release of
the product ? or a written description of the campaign.

It is preferable that the case is reasonably well known, and U.S.
based, but all suitable answers will be rewarded.

I am willing to pay US$25 per fully answered brand that is provided in
full, with exceptional answers being tipped well.

Good Luck.

Aaron.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 02 Feb 2006 19:10 PST

The classic case that would seem to meet your description is the
release of the Edsel by Ford Motor Company, back in the 1950's.

Is that too long ago for your needs?


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by aaronqwerty-ga on 02 Feb 2006 19:50 PST

Thank you for your question.

This would be Okay, but the problem may be getting hold of some of the
advertising materials.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 03 Feb 2006 04:44 PST

Aaron,

There's been a lot written on the glorious failure that was the Edsel.

Here's a good overview of its history, along with some pictures of the
car and of some of the ads that ran:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel


Let me know if that answers your question.  And if not, please tell me
what sort of additional information you need to make for a complete
answer.

Thanks,

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by aaronqwerty-ga on 12 Feb 2006 16:49 PST

Thank you for your help, this has been a good example.

Aaron,

Thanks so much.

Here are a few additional links to some of the Edsel ads.


These are pretty high-resolution scans, and you can can pull up a
large image by clicking on the smaller one:


http://storm.tocmp.com/edsel1960.htm



and here's some more:


http://www.uslink.net/~hepcats/todd.html


Enjoy!  Let me know if there's anything else you need.


paf



search strategy -- Used my own knowledge of Edsels, along with a
search on both Google and Google Images for [ edsel ]