Fascinating is the word for this book. 100 Spectacular Brand disasters from most of the global giants, who set on sail with multi million dollar campaign, only to sink without a trace.
The book is one of the best from the learning perspective as it extensively takes the before launch scenarios, during launch hurdles and the aftermath. It also gives the checklist of lessons learnt hence providing ' how not to' advice.
Book starts with few classic failure examples (New Coke, McDonald's, Ford Edsel). It further takes us to 'Idea Failures' in which it takes few examples as how Pepsi AM(for those who don't want caffeine through coffee) didn't work or Rasna's Orangejolt(launched just because of competition) and many other idea failures.
Book continues with examples of 'Extension Failures' in which it suitably explains Bic, a pen brand, if extended to underwear can be a disaster or Harley Davidson, extended to perfumes yet another disaster or even colgate, toothpaste extended to kitchen entree followed the same league. Pond's Toothpaste was yet another one. People like Ponds for fragrance, there was no link for fragrance here and hence the failure.
Next comes 'PR Failures' which has examples of McDonald's McLibel, Exxon etc. 'People failures' has example like Fashion cafe, which had no connection between model and food.
'Culture Failures' has hilarious and amazing examples like Pepsi's slogan in Taiwan was 'Come alive with the Pepsi generation' which translated to 'Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead', then there were translation problems for cars like General Motor's Chevy Nova (in Spanish it meant 'it doesn't go') in Latin America, Mitsubishi Pajero(in Spanish it meant 'Masturbator') and lot many.
Re-branding Failure has examples of Tommy Hilfiger for its logo. 'Tired Brand Failures' which has one of the most oldest and famous brands like Yardley, Kodak, Levis etc. The reason for failure was very much simple people just wanted to move on with the world and evolving technology in case of Kodak and for Yardley & Levis, it had many new competitors focusing the youths and next gen.
Brand Failure is not just the lessons of failure, what to do or what not to for only Marketing enthusiasts it typically projects learning values for how to maintain the brand 'ONESELF'. So it is not a book just for folks involved in branding but for everyone.
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