50 Worst Product Flops of All Time

[ericram]

Quite an interesting list. Was thinking New Coke would be #1, but was wrong. Hadn't heard of a lot of these, but some was surprised. It is a list time of year, so your thoughts?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/07/11/50-worst-product-flops-of-all-time/36734837/

 

[seminoledq]

Must be a pretty good list. I haven't heard of many of those.

 

[Fijimn]

Quite an interesting list. Was thinking New Coke would be #1, but was wrong. Hadn't heard of a lot of these, but some was surprised. It is a list time of year, so your thoughts?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/07/11/50-worst-product-flops-of-all-time/36734837/

New Coke wasn’t a real product change - it was a promotion to cover up Coke’s switch from sugar to corn syrup.

 

[Nole Daddy]

New Coke is the one I think that comes to mind as the biggest flop. The thing is that Coke rebounded nicely once they ditched it and brought back the real stuff. I remember a bunch of those on this list too!!!

 

[RunRonnieRun]

I remember and enjoyed the Lifesavers soda.

 

[Nole Daddy]

New Coke was just nasty. Like Pepsi nasty

 

[Nole Daddy]

How about in the 90’s when Taco Bell releases their low fat menu.

 

[Nole Daddy]

Or when Pizza Hut opened a sub shop but you would have to order at different places in the restaurant for subs

 

[mcgrawfsu]

How about in the 90’s when Taco Bell releases their low fat menu.

That was awful. I'm sure there are worse flops, but this was a gross idea

 

[Nole Daddy]

That was awful. I'm sure there are worse flops, but this was a gross idea

That was out when I was at FSU.

 

[ericram]

Or when Pizza Hut opened a sub shop but you would have to order at different places in the restaurant for subs

Oh gosh I completely forgot about that one. I remember when Pizza Hut was an actual restaurant that served beer.

 

[Nole Daddy]

Oh gosh I completely forgot about that one. I remember when Pizza Hut was an actual restaurant that served beer.

I do too.

 

[dmm5157]

That was a pretty good and accurate list. Galaxy Note 7 should probably be higher. Almost killed Samsung mobile division, one of many blunders Samsung has had.

I hate it when articles show the picture above the title and description of the item, like how this article was organized.

 

[Nole Daddy]

Oh gosh I completely forgot about that one. I remember when Pizza Hut was an actual restaurant that served beer.

I found this article about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/14/...-sell-its-d-angelo-s-sandwich-shop-chain.html

 

[ericram]

That was a pretty good and accurate list. Galaxy Note 7 should probably be higher. Almost killed Samsung mobile division, one of many blunders Samsung has had.

I hate it when articles show the picture above the title and description of the item, like how this article was organized.

I don't see the Note 7 as a flop really. It got rave reviews, and was a excellent phone. The only issue was it kept exploding and burning stuff down on a few occasions.

 

[ericram]

I found this article about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/14/...-sell-its-d-angelo-s-sandwich-shop-chain.html

Oh that is right. It was when Pepsi owned them.

 

[KitingHigh]

New Coke is the one I think that comes to mind as the biggest flop. The thing is that Coke rebounded nicely once they ditched it and brought back the real stuff. I remember a bunch of those on this list too!!!

I remember an interview with a Coke executive, who said when asked if it was done on purpose, "We aren't that smart... but we aren't that dumb either."

It may well have been an accident, but it's kinda hard to call it a flop as Coke had been losing market share and the "debacle" totally turned that around. New Coke actually stuck around for a pretty long time as well. It wasn't completely discontinued until 2002.

 

[BlizzardNole]

I was in Saltillo, Mexico for a couple weeks that summer of '85 and they had the old Cokes in the traditional bottles for like 5 cents equivalent. We drank those like crazy.

 

[KitingHigh]

Oh gosh I completely forgot about that one. I remember when Pizza Hut was an actual restaurant that served beer.

Every now and then you see the unmistakable corner windows of those old buildings. I used to make the family sit in the corner booth every time for the buffet.

 

[helmetnuts]

One of the worst ever that goes along with one of the worst business decisions ever...Hulk Hogan's agent approaches him about two products that he has been offered to endorse...he passes on the first one and decides to put his name on.....The Hulk Hogan Thunder Mixer.......

The one that he passes up and goes to one of his agent's other clients....the George Foreman grill which Foreman has made about $200m.



http://www.poprewind.com/hulk-hogan-thunder-mixer/

 

[cgj0198]

Clear Pepsi was a total bomb. It tasted like a flat pepsi.

Recently Chick-fila tried changing out there BBQ sauce and folks went crazy. I saw a guy argue with a manager about how he knew that there was some of the old BBQ sauce in the back. They were even selling some of the old BBQ sauce packets on ebay.

about a month or so later the old sauce came back.

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

I don't see the Note 7 as a flop really. It got rave reviews, and was a excellent phone. The only issue was it kept exploding and burning stuff down on a few occasions.

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

One of the worst ever that goes along with one of the worst business decisions ever...Hulk Hogan's agent approaches him about two products that he has been offered to endorse...he passes on the first one and decides to put his name on.....The Hulk Hogan Thunder Mixer.......

The one that he passes up and goes to one of his agent's other clients....the George Foreman grill which Foreman has made about $200m.



http://www.poprewind.com/hulk-hogan-thunder-mixer/

Maybe....

Because there were panini presses/grills LONG before the Foreman Grill (early 70s with the first mainstream non commercial kitchen one in 74). I think a huge part of its success is having fat loveable and affable George Foreman as its spokesman selling the benefits of cooking “diet” hamburgers on it. That sounds much more attractive to the average Mericuhn than some fancy Eyetalian sandwich maker.

I don’t think the Hulkster would have been nearly as successful.

 

[JohnnieHolmesNole]

Why isn’t the ACC Network on this list?

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

Clear Pepsi was a total bomb. It tasted like a flat pepsi.

Recently Chick-fila tried changing out there BBQ sauce and folks went crazy. I saw a guy argue with a manager about how he knew that there was some of the old BBQ sauce in the back. They were even selling some of the old BBQ sauce packets on ebay.

about a month or so later the old sauce came back.

I was never a Sonny’s fan as they were the worst of the many FatBoys ripoff (and there’s an article with the owner admitting he stole the recipes from FatBoys) but when they dropped their FatBoys clone sauces (the old Mild and Hot) about a year ago for their “new original sauce” that tastes like Bullseye Masterpiece OTC sauce I completely stopped going.

 

[SoddyNole]

The death knell of Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water was the customers could not tell the difference from their beer.

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

Quite an interesting list. Was thinking New Coke would be #1, but was wrong. Hadn't heard of a lot of these, but some was surprised. It is a list time of year, so your thoughts?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/07/11/50-worst-product-flops-of-all-time/36734837/

I can’t comment too much on the rest of the list, but the two examples they have for the video game industry (Dreamcast and Virtual Boy) are completely wrong. There’s no doubt the Virtual Boy selling only 770k units was a big flop for Nintendo, but it didn’t impact their bottom line (plus it’s not even their worst selling system, that’s the Pokemon Mini console only sold in three Nintendo stores in the US and nowhere else). The Dreamcast sold 10.6 million units and was the last console made by Sega but their market share was devastated by the complete failure of their previous system the Saturn which sold only 9.2 million compared to the Genesis’ 35 million.

No, the #1 worst video game console flop of all time is the Apple Pippin.

Designed as a joint venture between Apple and Bandai (one of the highest selling software companies at that time) to compete against the Sony PlayStation One, Nintendo 64, 3DO, Philips CD-I, NeoGeo and Atari Jaguar; Apple only manufactured a whopping 42,000 of them of which an estimated 4,000 were sold at full retail price while the rest were sold at giant fire sale discount prices or thrown away. So if you haven’t heard of it....no kidding, no one other than gaming history nerds like myself have heard of it either.

 

[ReliableOstrich]

Is Chipotle's queso on that list? It should be. That stuff is g r o s s.

I wouldn't call Google Glasses or the Apple Newton 'flops', they didn't achieve commercial success but they were visionary products, both ahead of their time. You need products like that to loosen consumers up to the idea.

 

[noleit]

Gators 'Harvard of The South' campaign .

 

[noleit]

Heinz purple ketchup came out in early 20000.

 

[ericram]

Heinz purple ketchup came out in early 20000.

Are you posting a future list?

 

[noleit]

Are you posting a future list?

Stupid number check didn't work!

 

[SoddyNole]

Gators 'Harvard of The South' campaign .

 

[cgj0198]

Is Chipotle's queso on that list? It should be. That stuff is g r o s s.

I wouldn't call Google Glasses or the Apple Newton 'flops', they didn't achieve commercial success but they were visionary products, both ahead of their time. You need products like that to loosen consumers up to the idea.

Yeah that queso is awful.

 

[ReliableOstrich]

Winner:

2014 uf football calendar, featuring serial killer Aaron Hernandez as Mr July, after he was arrested in June 2013 for murder.

 

[PoopandBoogers]

 

[noleit]

That was a hell of a bust!

 

[fsunole025]

Is Chipotle's queso on that list? It should be. That stuff is g r o s s.

I wouldn't call Google Glasses or the Apple Newton 'flops', they didn't achieve commercial success but they were visionary products, both ahead of their time. You need products like that to loosen consumers up to the idea.

Sometimes I eat at Moe's solely for the queso. If Chipotle could improve their queso to that standard I would never have a reason to support moe's. Big time fail. I never see a customer order it either.

 

[seminole97]

New Coke wasn’t a real product change - it was a promotion to cover up Coke’s switch from sugar to corn syrup.

I’ve heard the same thing. Is this urban myth or is there confirmation out there somewhere?

For the record, Coke from a glass bottle made with sugar (I've seen it at Costco imported from Mexico) is the only real Coke.

I don't see the Note 7 as a flop really. It got rave reviews, and was a excellent phone. The only issue was it kept exploding and burning stuff down on a few occasions.

Less a flop, more so a crash and burn.

 

[NoleNewsIsGoodNews]

How about in the 90’s when Taco Bell releases their low fat menu.

Man I had long forgotten about those....weren't they called Taco Lites or something close to that..SMH