Question

Apple’s Newton, Coors Rocky Mountain Water, Cosmopolitan Yogurt, Sony’s Betamax - are some of the better known failed new products; I’m sure you can think of many other examples. Why do otherwise successful companies make such "mistakes"? what are some of the factors contributing to new product failure?

Answer 1

The otherwise successful companies sometimes make these mistakes by ignoring the key facts mentioned below. It can range from a pure miscalculation to silly mistakes as in case of Maxwell House’s Ready to Drink Coffee or fail to test things beforehand as in case of Microsoft’s Zune.

The factors contributing to new product failure are as:

1. Failure to understand what consumer wants from a product or ignoring negative user feedback, which can lead to lack of interest of consumers.
2. Offering consumers, a product with no reasons for them to buy it. Fail to get potential user feedback during the trials.
3. Wrong pricing of a product or in other words charging high rates or prices for a product.
4. Fault in the design of a product as well as poor user experience can also led to the product failure.
5. Targeting the wrong market, weak positioning strategy and Implementing marketing plan poorly.