HOW COULD BUSINESS GET IT SO WRONG?

"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" (Luke 14:28)

Sometimes I think I must have "Adult A.D.D.", for my mind can wander in myriads of directions, seemingly like a runaway horse at times! This morning as I was working passing out fliers to the shoppers at BJs Wholesale Club, I found myself thinking about MARKETING and wondering why so many "experts" have gotten marketing SO wrong. (I guess it was just looking at all that merchandise and all those shoppers, AND the fact that it's Labor Day that got me thinking about this.)

During the more than fifty years I've been living on this planet, I've seen a lot of these kinds of things. One example is "Square Spaghetti". It was introduced by Prince in the middle 1960s. The television commercial sang a theme song to the tune of "Frere Jacques". The square spaghetti came in a distinctive purple spaghetti box. Our family bought it a number of times, and frankly we liked it. It was actually a little EASIER to twirl on a fork and was kind of "cool" but within a couple of years, it was gone. Another product that came and went was Smucker's peanut butter and jelly, all in ONE jar! I don't remember the EXACT year that product came out. I'm guessing somewhere around 1970. It also was very unpopular and did not last.

You know, products are brought out after EXTENSIVE marketing research by experts. WHY then did these fail? I suspect test subjects sometimes LIE during the research...they may give the answers that they think researchers WANT to hear, rather than just giving their honest opinions. Much more famous and dramatic cases of business getting it ALL wrong are "New" Coca-Cola and Ford Motor Company's "Edsel" car.

I am not sure exactly when "New Coke" was introduced. It was during the 1980s; I'd guess around 1985. "New Coke", that is Coca-Cola made with a totally new formula, was introduced with great fanfare. The "New Coke" was much sweeter and tasted much more like Pepsi. Marketing surveys indicated young people vastly preferred the taste of Pepsi and that Pepsi outsold Coke among youth and young adults. The concern was that as these folks aged, they'd keep buying Pepsi and not Coke. SO, this New Coke SHOULD have been a winner. But it wasn't. It was a DISASTER. The New Coke did not sell, and the public DEMANDED that traditional Coca-Cola be brought back. After only a couple of months, the company reintroduced traditional Coca-Cola under the name "Coca-Cola Classic". The company still had no intention of getting rid of New Coke. At that time, all Coca-Cola sold at fountains and restaurants was STILL going to be New Coke. And, Diet Coke and caffeine free Coke were still New Coke. The company felt that in time the New stuff would eventually catch on, but in never did! Within a couple of years, "New Coke" was GONE. Everything went back to "normal"...all that planning and marketing research...it was wrong and a failure!

In the early 1050s Ford Motor Company's executives were wringing their hands over the fact that their luxury Lincoln automobiles and medium-priced Mercury cars were poor sellers. General Motors offered a whole selection of various makes and models based on demographics. Chevrolet buyers often went on to become Pontiac or Oldsmobile customers, and by the time they were wealthy old people, they were driving Cadillacs. Ford customers "moved up" also, but to GENREAL MOTORS cars! The idea was to offer a very cool and very desirable medium priced car that would be superior to Pontiac in looks and image and would keep Ford customers in the family. Years of research and work resulted in the 1958 Edsel which was introduced in the Fall of 1957. The car had a VERY weird looking "horse collar" grille, AND its NAME left something to be desired. ("Edsel" was named after Henry Ford's son.) But Ford executives were CONVINCED this car was a winner- a winner like the cool Ford Thunderbird they'd introduced a few years earlier, only GREATER. Ford executives expected Edsel to be a huge seller. They confidently stated that if they could not build and sell 100,000 Edsels (minimum) for 1958, then the car was a total failure. In fact, they sold just over 30,000 1958 Edsels. The public never warmed up to the car, at all. For 1959, they toned the car's looks down A BIT, but Edsel sold even more poorly. Many people don't realize there WAS a 1960 Edsel. Only around 500 were built. The '60 Edsel did NOT have the "horse collar" grille. I've seen photos of 1960 Edsels, but never one in person. Any one of these 1960 Edsels found TODAY would be worth a lot of money as a collectible car. The '60 Edsel looks very much like a combination of a 1960 Ford Galaxie and a 1959 Pontiac Catalina.

On this Labor Day, during such tough economic times, I guess I'm thinking about these things because we can't afford any of these kind of products which executives think are so great, but are actually a disaster. U.S. industry has got to get it right.

AND, for my minister and Christian friends, there IS a real parallel in why some churches fail...because they're out of touch with people, etc.