Assignment: Understanding Product Failures

Name of your Group: __________________________________

Name of Team Member Student ID Email Id

The objective of this assignment is to understand why some seemingly promising products fail? Here we will attempt to illustrate the factors influencing the success of products. The emphasis will be to highlight the marketing (and customer)-related factors that determine the success and failure of a product. STEP 1: Think about a product that you consider has been a tremendous success in the marketplace. Simultaneously, think about a product that in your opinion has failed in the marketplace. It will make the task easier if you choose products that satisfy a similar need for the customer. Describe the products: a) Successful Product/Brand: a. Why do you consider it successful? (State the metrics on which you base your judgement i.e. market share, number of customers, regional dominance etc.)

b) Failed Product / Brand: a. Why do you consider it as a failure? (i.e. did the product not achieve its intended marketshare or profit or revenue, or did the product not work/perform as intended or was the product too late to the market).

STEP 2: Propose some hypotheses as to why the above products succeeded and failed? (NOTE: Obvious low quality of a product is not a very interesting explanation- remember quality is subjective if it was not of good quality to one segment, it can be good for another segment). Provide few arguments supported by factual information to justify your hypothesis. Hypothesis 1 (Successful Product):

Hypothesis 1 (Failure Product):

STEP 3: Now, lets brainstorm the fundamental causes of success or failure of the above products a) Evaluate the products on following factors that determine the success of new products. Explicitly state how and why did each of the product perform on the five factors. Reasons of Success / Failure Relative Advantage of the product Communicability of its benefits Relative Ease of Use / Complexity of Use Perceived Risk of Use Observability and Testability Compatibility with existing systems and Lifestyles Successful Product Failed Product

b) For the failed product, identify which stage of the NPD process failed or was ineffective which led to the commercial failure of the product. State some reasons why it failed in that particular stage of the NPD process.

c) Compare and contrast the marketing strategy of the successful and failed product? How were they distributed in the marketplace? How did the firms communicate to their customers? What was right or wrong with either strategies?

STEP 4: Suggest concrete recommendations backed by relevant justifications to revive/rescue the product by redesigning, repackaging, or an alternative marketing strategy?