Top 10 Most Expensive Product FAILS
#10: New Coke
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The cola wars have been seemingly going on forever, and it’s effectively been a two horse race between Coke and Pepsi. And back in 1985, Coke came up with a rather unusual strategy to get ahead. They decided to reformulate the much-loved Coca-Cola formula, aptly naming it New Coke. Needless to say, this new taste didn’t catch on. New Coke offered a much sweeter taste, not too dissimilar to Pepsi, which was surprising, given that Coke had long criticized Pepsi’s overly sweet taste. The media hated it, Coke fans hated it, and it ultimately cost the company an estimated $30 million for the privilege.
#9: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game)
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What happens when you try a little too hard to capitalize on a trend? Well, you get perhaps one of the worst video games of all time. It’s 1982, and Stephen Speilberg’s latest film, E.T. Extraterrestrial is killing it at the box office, so Atari decides to pay a huge chunk of money for the rights to make an E.T. game on the Atari 2600 console. They then proceeded to rush the game out of the door, spending just five weeks developing it. The result is a game that was not only sparse and confusing, but incredibly difficult to play. The whole thing felt rushed and underdeveloped, because it was. The vast majority of the game cartridges were sent to a landfill, and in the process Atari ended up losing somewhere in the region of $100 million dollars.
#8: Segway
The Segway will probably always be regarded quite fondly in the transportation zeitgeist. It was fun, cool and futuristic. So why did it flop? Well, right from its launch in 2001, the funky up-right people mover was deemed far too expensive for the mass market. It was was impractical and had very little infrastructure to support it. The company was also scarred by reports of people injuring themselves while riding them. In fact, Segway company owner James Heselden died by accidentally riding his Segway off a cliff in 2010. The Segway personal transporter isn’t produced anymore, and it only sold 140,000 units in its lifetime, ultimately resulting in a company loss well in excess of $100 million.
#7: Amazon's Fire Phone
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While Amazon is an absolute powerhouse in the online retail world, its various forays into numerous tech segments has arguably been more miss than hit. Take its Fire Phone, a supposed rival to the iPhone, launched back in 2014. This smartphone initially looked promising, shortly after its release however, anticipation quickly turned to disappointment. It was expensive, didn’t have as many apps as its competitors, and a lot of its supposedly advanced features were really just engineered to get you to buy more things on Amazon. After just 13 months on the market, Amazon pulled the phone from shelves, taking a $170 million hit to their balance sheet in the process.
#6: McDonald's Arch Deluxe
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I wish there was a more gourmet option at McDonald’s - said nobody, ever. Well, apparently, this was the stream of consciousness McDonald’s tapped into in 1996, when their overzealous marketing team attempted to create a “sophisticated burger” for “grown-ups”. This new burger didn’t catch on, and arguably flew right in the face of the fast food chain’s family appeal. McDonald’s also faced resistance from franchisees, as the Arch Deluxe required its own set of unique ingredients, making it less efficient to produce. The company reportedly lost around $300 million dollars on the swanky stack, and it was swiftly added to the ever growing lost menu of Mickie D duds.
#5: Ford Edsel
This American car maker has a solid roster of big hitters, but it also has a fair few flops. And none of them is more famous than the Ford Edsel. Promised to be the car of the future, the Edsel launched in 1957, right at the beginning of a recession with a surprisingly high price tag. Strike one. It was also rife with quality and reliability issues. Strike two. And what about that vertical grille? Although it was originally designed to stand out, consumers thought it just looked odd. Strike three. Ford produced the car for just two years and reportedly lost about $350 million on the Edsel name.
#4: Premier Smokeless Cigarettes
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The 80s was an era rife with anti-smoking sentiment, forcing tobacco brands to find innovative ways of selling their products to consumers. And RJ Reynolds came up with what they thought was a genius solution, Premier Smokeless Cigarettes. Pitched as a “cleaner” alternative to the usual crowd, this smokeless invention was pulled from shelves just four months after it launched, reportedly leaving RJ Reynolds with a loss of nearly $1 billion. They tasted bad, smelled even worse, were difficult to light and health groups took umbrage with their claims of being healthier. That, plus the fact that there were rumors the packaging was being used to smuggle cocaine, all led to the smokeless cigarette quickly going up in, well, smoke.
#3: Microsoft Kin
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In 2010 Microsoft launched its Kin range of phones - the Kin ONE and Kin TWO. These looked to ride the handheld social media wave sweeping the market at the time, right on the coattails of the iPhone 4. There was a big problem however. Microsoft's Kin phones, supposedly designed specifically for hip, young, social media-loving teens, didn't support apps. So, to visit Facebook, you had to go through a browser. The actual expense of the device, and the fact that the operating system wasn’t very good - using half Windows and half something else - all made the Kin go down like a lead balloon, to the tune of around $1 billion dollars.
#2: Google Glass
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When it was introduced in 2013, this wearable tech was supposed to bring hands-free smartphone capabilities and augmented reality to the masses. So where did it all go wrong? Aside from the usual high price tag and safety concerns often relating to new-fangled wearable tech, Google Glass also struggled with disappointing battery life, poor performance and privacy issues. It effectively ended up marooning itself on its own niche island of what it called Glass Explorers, a club too expensive and impractical for anyone to want to be a part of. Google Glass lasted just two years, in which it saw lackluster sales, and eventually it ended up costing the company around $1 billion.
#1: Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7
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This smartphone snafu actually had a positive start. The Note 7 was well-received when it was launched in 2016, going head-to-head with Apple’s latest iPhone. But then Samsung hit a snag. Reports started coming in that some Note 7’s batteries were malfunctioning, overheating, and in some cases, exploding. And one of these instances happened on an airline - leading to the Note 7 being banned from commercial flights by the Department of Transportation. Samsung had to roll out a major recall, which led to a huge loss of around $2 billion - and potential lost revenue of around $17 billion. Take note. Or don’t?
