Apple Newton

With the products Apple releases today, it is hard to imagine they could produce a bad product. But they did. Back in 1993 Apple released the Newton (MessagePad).

Apple marketers made the Newton look like an incredibly accurate touch pad personal computer. But the reality of

the Newton was, it was heavily overpriced, bulky, imprecise, inaccurate, and difficult to use. Because of its

massive flaws, the Newton was pulled from the market in 1998, although it was a complete failure, it did pave the

road for PDA’s, which led to products like the iPhone.

eVilla

• In 2001, the electronics giant Sony released a web based personal computer called the eVilla. The eVilla only had one purpose, to use the internet; it even came with a $21.99 monthly fee for internet. The idea of the product was not a bad one, but with a $500 price tag, it was unreasonable to buy something that can only use the internet when people could get a fully functional PC for around the same price. Being the good company they are, Sony did realize the product was a failure, so they refund all customers for the unit, and refunded the $21.99 monthly fee.

New Coca-Cola

• In the early 80’s Coca-Cola was losing market share to their much sweeter competition Pepsi-Cola. The American customer base seemed to prefer the sweeter taste of Pepsi, so Coke felt the need to change their product to keep up market share. So in April 1985 the New Coke hit the shelves. They advertised it to be “Smoother, rounder yet bolder” than the classic Coke. But the mistake Coca-Cola made was halting the production of the original Coke. So the diehard Coca-Cola fan base they had was outraged that they could not get the original Coke, so they boycotted the new one. Realizing their massive mistake, Coca-Cola put the original Coke back onto shelves, and kept the new one out as well. The new Coke only lasted until the early 90’s, although it was a failure it taught Coke a huge lesson about branding.

McDonalds Arch Deluxe

• Typically, McDonald’s consumers are not looking for a fine dining situation, or a fancy meal, they just want fast, basic, and cheap food service. But that being said, McDonald’s released the Arch Deluxe, and with it followed a $100 million dollar advertising campaign. They Arch Deluxe was meant to be a “refined” burger, for a sophisticated adult market, but truth be told it was a regular burger, with a round piece of peppered bacon on it. The Arch Deluxe was a failure for McDonalds, mainly because McDonalds was the wrong place for a “sophisticated” burger.

The Santa Dreidel

• The Santa dreidel is not only a product failure, but it is insulting. A dreidel is a religious toy used during the Jewish Hanukkah celebration. And the reason the Santa dreidel is insulting, is because the Jewish religion does not believe in Santa, and it does not celebrate anything involving him. Who ever made the Santa dreidel was either making a joke, or really didn’t do the research on their product before making it.