Sleepless nights with all kinds of butterflies in one’s stomach, if one gets to sleep - nightmares about market reaction to the advertising, readiness of the distribution chain, and the worry of a rain that could affect the launch event scheduled in an open arena characterize a product manager who puts his entire life behind the success of his product. There are some new products, which move off the shelf on the day of launch. Some other products grunt and groan their way to the shelf with less or no life on the shelf. Product management is a unique science. In my opinion, it is as much important and intricate as parenting a child. Whether it is a commercial idea from an advertising agency or a new recipe in a five star restaurant or a new VAS launched by a telecom company, the success or failure of these ideas depends on a lot of factors. Simulated conjoint analysis software cannot help you reach development of a product from your desk.

Learning from Failed Products

When we look back and check why some products had failed while some others had succeeded, we will end up with a few factors that were cardinally right or wrong. The story of the vacuumizer launched by Real Value in the mid-1990s with a heavy advertising blitz would still be fresh in many minds. It was a perfect product. Arguments could be there to prove that it was highly priced and a lot of other reasons may be shown that could have marred the product’s success. But in my opinion, its failure was because it was ahead of its time. The lifestyle of an urban affluent housewife had not entered the portals of ‘wellness in storing food’. Real Value did conduct seminars and programs for the housewife to understand the product and its advantages. But still not many housewives thought it wise to buy it. Whom to blame? You got to get the timing right.
When was it that you last saw a television with picture-in-picture facility and enjoyed a full-length show? A popular consumer durables manufacturer ran a campaign, which promoted this unique feature in their TV when there were not even two good channels to receive from your roof top antenna. Here the case is not that it was launched ahead of its time (easy guess), but that it was an impractical idea (best to avoid) to ask people watch two things on their TV screen simultaneously when the people from your neighborhood were sitting in your drawing hall (that was how TV watching was, in those days) to watch the popular movie that was being aired by doordarshan.

Any seasoned marketing individual could reel out the stories of many more products that failed. But each one has a different context and different product promises. Factor analysis could help the concerned people understand these in detail. While it is key to learn from those mistakes, it is equally important to learn from the success achieved by many other new products. New product development calls for out of the box thinking.

Success Stories of Out of the Box Ideas