Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time by Matt Haig - 9780749444334 - Compare Prices on New & Used Textbooks, Cheap Textbooks

It's not just smaller, lesser-known companies that have launched dud brands. On the contrary, most of the world's global giants have launched new products that have flopped - spectacularly and at great cost. Haig organizes these 100 "failures" into ten types which include classic failures (e.g., New Coke), idea failures (e.g., R.J.Reynolds' smokeless cigarettes), extension failures (e.g. Harley Davidson perfume), culture failures (e.g., Kellogs in India), and technology failures (e.g., Pets.com).

		Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time by Matt Haig ISBN-10: 9780749444334 ISBN-10: 0-7494-4433-9 ISBN-13: 9780749444334 ISBN-13: 978-0-7494-4433-4 Paperback 2005-10-28 Kogan Page Find Lowest Price
Editorials

Product Description It's not just smaller, lesser-known companies that have launched dud brands. On the contrary, most of the world's global giants have launched new products that have flopped - spectacularly and at great cost. Haig organizes these 100 "failures" into ten types which include classic failures (e.g., New Coke), idea failures (e.g., R.J.Reynolds' smokeless cigarettes), extension failures (e.g. Harley Davidson perfume), culture failures (e.g., Kellogs in India), and technology failures (e.g., Pets.com).
Reviews

Very interesting It is always good to know about brand failures. This is an excellent not-to-list that every marketing manager should read. I consider very wise to have a copy of this book on your desk. Furthermore, it is pretty fun to read.
Not Worth Your Time Or Money. Matt Haig reveals no new insight into branding or marketing. I would rate this book a 4/5 as entertaining toilet reading, but if this book was suppose to teach a marketer something new, then it is simply an insult to you intelligence. What pissed me off the most was the lack of substance in the case studies and the sheer amount of promotion for his buddies books - most notably Al Ries. Why am I reading the your book when I can just get his and save myself the frustration. I am trying to remember a single good piece of advice and can't. Unless you're a complete amateur or a total idiot this book isn't for you. I've seen fliers with better information. Don't Waste Your Time.
Could have been much, much better. I went into reading this book with the highest of expectations both because of the other reviews on it and because I am really interested in the topic. It started out interestingly enough but quickly went downhill. The first few case studies were pretty in depth and interesting but towards the middle of the book they got really short and shallow. It is almost as if the writer became impatient with his own book. If you don't want to write in detail about 100 brands then just don't. Write in depth about a handful but make the case studies meaningful. The subtopics were also not logical for me. For me a better format would have been: Chapter one / Lesson one: Research your market. Then give some examples of brands that failed to do so. Chapter two / lesson two: Kill the product not the brand. Then some examples. And so on. But it was not arranged like that. In fact none of the lessons seemed to tie together that well. Surely the author could have found some more logical groupings. Overall I give the book two stars.
Worth Reading This book in worth reading even if you are not associated with any branding activities. Most of the examples are explained with logic (though few examples are debatable) and with great insigt. Well written book!
Invaluable case study examples of branding in the trenches This book is worth perusing, if only for the very large number of vivid examples of branding success and failure. Some of the underlying principles are open to critique, most notably the authors assertion that perception determines buyers decisions rather than product traits. Many would say that `perception' is, of course, determined to a large extent by the customer's relationship to the product's traits. However, Haig is on track in so many other areas, and the case examples are so valuable, that the book is worth a look anyhow. Branding can be such a confusing, abstracted issue, that the concrete examples here can provide a much needed reality-check.