Is your company launching a new product ____ the market? Maybe it’s time ____ your old products to have a re-launch? But be careful! Some product launches can go very wrong. We look back ____ the history of product launch disasters ____ the last fifty years and consider the reasons why. It was September 4th and Ford was the most ____ car brand in the world. Everyone was ____ because the company had a new car. Nearly three million people waited outside car showrooms to see the new product. But the Ford Edsel was a ____ mistake. First of all, the name was very ____. Nobody liked it. But there was a worse problem. The car was not ____ – in fact it was very ugly and no one wanted to driveit. Thirdly, it was also ____ designed and parts fell off it! In the first year, Ford only sold63,000. By 1960 – less than three years after the launch – the Edsel disappeared. Before downloads and before DVDs do you ____ video tape? Sony was the first manufacturer to ____ this kind of product. They ____ it Betamax but a few months later JVC launched VHS video. VHS ____ because it was more functional and user-friendly and so more shops ____ the product. Sony ____ the last Betamax in 2002. Think of Apple ____ you normally think of iPods, iPhones, cool laptops, and very effective product launches. ____ not every Apple product was a success. In 1983 Apple launched ‘Lisa’. The Apple Lisa was a computer for business customers in particular. ____, Apple soon discovered ____ business people also wanted cheaper products. Lisa was overpriced and sometimes slow. Apple soon stopped production of Lisa and moved on. Their success now means they obviously learned from this mistake. April 23rd, 1985 is an ____ date in the history of product re-launches. Coca-cola changed the formula of its 100-year-old drink and called the product ‘New Coke’. The____ idea to change the product was because Pepsi-Cola – their main competitor –had a ____ market share so Coca-cola needed a new strategy. The market research was____ for the new product. People tasted it in focus groups and they liked the new taste. It was ____. But by May, Coca-cola had a disaster and Pepsi Cola was number one.The public wanted their ____ coke – not the new drink. On July 10th the company brought back the old Coca-cola but they called it Coca-cola classic. Soon after, their product was number one in the market once more. ____ the end of the twentieth century they were everywhere. Macdonald’s restaurants and burgers were ____ every high street in most countries. But even Macdonalds had a failure. In 1996, the main customers ____ Macdonalds were children with mum and dad.But Macdonalds also wanted more adults – single adults ____ their friends and with their extra cash. It planned to have the same product – hamburgers – but this hamburger was called the ‘Arch Deluxe’ ____ a more sophisticated customer. Macdonalds spent ____ 300million dollars on research, production, and marketing, but the product failed. However,Macdonalds learned something ____ the experience: adult customers prefer more healthy products ____ salads and fish. So nowadays you can’t buy an Arch Deluxe at their restaurants but you can buy a green salad.

Launching a product

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