In terms of marketing, anything goes when it comes to making a stir. Outrageous tastes, colours, packaging or product names – there is no such thing as going too far when trying to sell. But no company is safe from the odd marketing fail…
How about a purple ketchup for seasoning your steak and chips on a Friday? A shot of “cocaine” liquid to spice up a saturday afternoon? A frozen ready meal made by Colgate for lunch? So many risky products that blatantly didn’t work. We wonder why…. Here are 13 foods, objects or electronic devices that ended in abject failure, but which still made it into the shops!
1/ Frozen ready meals by Colgate
No, this isn’t a joke photo that has been photoshopped. In fact in 1982, Colgate had a rather strange expansion idea: to enter into the frozen ready meal market. The plan didn’t take, as you might expect. Lasagna with an aftertaste of peppermint isn’t too appealing all the same. To top it all off, even toothpaste sales plummeted after this marketing fail.
2/ Purple ketchup
In the 2000s, Heinz decided to change it up a little. Or more specifically, colour it up. They trialled a purple colour instead of the classic red to attract children. Seems like a good strategy, no? Apparently not, when you look at the sales. It must be admitted that the results aren’t exactly appetising….
3/ Bic perfumes
The French brand Bic decided in 1989 to launch a product that had little to do with its main produce: perfume! Just because the company come from the same country as the home of eau de toilette was clearly not a good enough reason to try their hand at it! In fact, consumers weren’t remotely sold on the idea. It’s true that transporting your perfume in something that looks like a cigarette lighter isn’t exactly living the dream.
4/ A chocolate chip sausage stick
Yes this is as horrifying as it sounds. This sweet and salty abomination indicates on the wrapper that it is a sausage pancake with chocolate chips. A skewer later and watch the strange combination take on the shape of an ice loll. Bleurgh.
5/ Mineral water for pets
Bottled water for cats and dogs was born of a preposterous idea in 1994. This flavoured sparkling water claimed to be rich in essential vitamins. In fact, it contained nothing more than water and bicarbonate of soda. Suffice to say sales did not take off. Who would spend their money on such a thing?
6/ Twitter Peek, a phone that could only send and receive tweets
Launched in 2009, the Twitter Peek was the first and last device created by Twitter. When we consider the million things our smartphones can do nowadays, we can well imagine the tragic fate of a phone that only had two uses. Sending and receiving tweets was the sole ambition of this apparatus. Serious marketing fail alert.
