Marketing Product Failure Research

2.What lessons one can learn from DuPont's success and failure?

Many lessons were learnt from success and failure stories of DuPont. They are summarized as follows:

* Investments such as in research and development must be able to have payoffs in the long term.

* High expectations due to previous breakthrough successes.

* There is a huge amount of uncertainty since there is no guarantee of every research being used successful in its innovation. It is very difficult to replicate success and keep up with innovations. Chances of ideas being implemented and producing successful results is very low. High number of trials and a very low probability of success.

* Past failures need to be looked at as resources since these may yield future results and inputs into future innovations .This can prove to be extremely useful once one has done a careful post-mortem analysis of the reasons of failure.

* Well researched product- trial and tested- developed to be used for commercial purpose and economically viable; as well as on the side of the manufacturer in terms of production capabilities.

It also should be noted that the DuPont Company should have made efforts to reduce the failure rates in the future and also take care in order to make sure that the company is able to post favourable returns and become successful in the future.

Why do new product fail and what are its implications?

Some products burn up faster than others. Some twist and turn slowly in the breeze, until the market causes them to crash. As per the research the most optimistic success rate for new product ideas is about 3%. In other words, 97% of product ideas never successfully enter the market. Some of the reasons are:

* Faulty product idea: The products often fail because of faulty product idea. A good idea can revolutionize the market but a bad idea may prove bitter to the firm or it may backfire. Example: Polar industries in 1991 launched "COOL CATS" fan - decorated with cartoon characters meant primarily for children. The fan was priced at premium; the idea was that children's were increasingly becoming influencers in purchase decisions and to attract the kids with the cartoon creatures and to position the product exclusively for kids. The product failed miserably in spite of its huge advertising budget because when the fan was put on it didn't have any colour effect and the customer did not justify its premium price.

*Distribution related problems: The new product fails if the product is unable to meet the channel requirements. While developing the product the channel requirements must be given adequate consideration. Example: when NESTLE launched its new chocolates the product and promotion was ok but the product failed in the distribution side because the company stipulated the product to be stored in refrigerators. The product faced two problems in the distribution side because it meant excluding a number of retail outlets as they didn't have this facility and secondly the chocolate was not picked by the customers as it was not seen upfront in the retail shops. Finally Nestle had to reformulate the product according to channel requirements.

* Poor timing of launch: Too early or late entry into the market is a common cause of failure. Kinetic Merlin was launched in Pune in 1991.It was a 3 in 1 set consisting of a colour television, a stereo with detachable speakers and a home computer. The product was targeted at the Indian consumers who are fond of sophisticated gadgets to immediately adopt such