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#BentGate and Other Product Launch Fails

Throwback Thursday: #BentGate and Other Product Launch Fails

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Excitement surrounded the recent release of Apple’s new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Apple aficionados everywhere couldn’t wait to get their hands on the new, slimmer phone with its bigger screen and much-anticipated iOS 8 software. However, for many consumers the latest Apple product has actually been a source of frustration. One of the most surprising issues consumers are running into is the structurally flexible nature of the iPhone 6 Plus–sit on it for too long and you’ll find yourself with a bent phone.

 

 

Obviously consumers and other phone companies did not hesitate to take to social media with their thoughts on the Apple product fail, getting the hashtags #Bendgate and #Bendghazi trending.

 

 

 

 

Apple will easily get past this little snafu as the bending is not the case with the majority of iPhone 6 Plus purchasers, and consumers will likely be able to replace their bent phones under warranty. However, in the spirit of Throwback Thursday, we will be looking at a few brands with new products that completely failed.

Colgate Dinner Entrees

In 1982, Colgate-Palmolive decided to launch a line of frozen dinners. Although it flopped, I think that I can actually see the logic behind the creation of this product: perhaps the masterminds behind these dinner entrees were hoping that consumers would eat these meals and then use Colgate toothbrushes and toothpastes to brush their teeth afterwards? However, this brand extension was so far beyond oral hygiene that consumers were not able to sink their teeth into this product (sorry about the pun), and Colgate Dinner Entrees were pulled from the shelves shortly after they were introduced.

 

DigiScents iSmell

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt that what the Internet really needs is scent. In 2001, DigiScents created a personal scent synthesizer that could be attached to a computer via a USB drive. The DigiScent had a cartridge that contained 128 primary odors, which could be mixed in order to emit a certain scent every time a user visited a website or opened an email. Although DigiScents was able to raise $20 million to create the iSmell, it never made it far past the prototype stage, as consumers could not figure out what was useful about the product.

 

Clairol Touch of Yogurt Shampoo

Cultured dairy products such as yogurt are actually good for you hair, so it makes sense to put it in a shampoo, right? Wrong. In 1979, Proctor & Gamble launched their Touch of Yogurt shampoo, which garnered a lot of disgust and confusion from consumers. Putting yogurt in ones hair conjured up ideas of mess and smelliness and a few consumers actually thought the shampoo was edible, causing them to become very sick. You would think that P&G might have learned their lesson with dairy-infused hair product when their Look of Buttermilk shampoo failed just three years earlier.

Cover Photo Source: 360b / Shutterstock.com

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://wpmaster.sjadv.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Our-Space-The-San-Jose-Group.png[/author_image] [author_info]Jenny is a Junior Executive at SJG. She earned her BA in Psychology and a minor in Educational Studies in 2014 from Colgate University. Outside the office, Jenny loves to travel (usually to Disney World), bake and watch copious amounts of TLC.[/author_info] [/author]