Why Product Launches Fail — According to Harvard Business Review
If you’ve reached this point in the design phase, let me start out by saying congratulations! Creating a product is hard work — especially when it involves many hours of brainstorming, finding a problem, collecting data from potential users and creating soft product that can be used for initial testing purposes.
As a designer myself, I know how challenging, frustrating and rewarding this process can be. However, before we move on to launching our product into the hands of the masses, lets first look at why most product launches fail, according to the article Why Most Product Launches Fail, published in the Harvard Business Review. I share this with you to not discourage you, but rather to show you the shortcomings of failed products in order to make sure that yours is a success.
According to authors Joan Schneider and Julie Hall, who work as partners in a firm specializing in product launches, there are five major flaws that lead products down into the dark and dreaded dungeon of failure. These are: not being able support fast growth, the product falls short of what it claims to be, the new item is in “product limbo,” users don’t understand the product, and while the product might be revolutionary, there is no market for it. It is in fact because of these, that 75% of consumer-packaged goods and retail products fail to earn even $7.5 million during their first year, according to Schneider and Hall.
The first danger new development companies often face is not being able to support rapid growth should a product have great success. The article gives an example of a product designed to use carbon dioxide to lure mosquitoes into a trap, coined the Mosquito Magnet. Initially, the product became a sensation, however when the company was forced to expand due to a dramatic increase in consumers wanting to purchase the product, the company had to move its production facility to China and the quality dropped substantially. This led to angry consumers and a dramatic drop in annual revenue — $70 million to $6 million, in fact.
The second-best route into the dungeon of failure is through creating a product that falls short of what it claims to be. The article gives the example of the software platform, Windows Vista, and the harsh criticism Microsoft received when its software was problematic for consumers to install and use efficiently. This angered customers and led Apple to launch a counter advertisement for the Mac, which was incredibly successful. If the hype behind your product is big, its performance better be twice as good as the hype.
Another way to ensure your product launch is a complete flop, is to not spend enough time testing your product to make sure that consumers will want to buy it. In the case of Coca-Cola C2, which I can safely assume many of you don’t remember due to the fact that it was on the market for a only a year before the invention of Coke Zero, researchers did not spend enough time analyzing the wants and needs of their target audience “20 — to 40 — year-old men who liked the taste of Coke (but not its calories and carbs). After the initial failure of Coca-Cola C2, the company revisited the wants of their audience and replaced it altogether with the still successful Coke Zero.
The last two surefire ways to destroy all hope of a successful product launch are by requiring consumers to spend hours learning how to use the product, and not having a market for it. I don’t know about you, but personally, the last thing I want to do as a consumer is spend a frustrating amount of time learning how to use a product. I buy something, pick it up, and expect it to work without being frustrated. And perhaps most importantly, while your product might be revolutionary, it’s a complete waste of time and energy if there is not a market willing to use it.
