Haig carefully organizes his material within ten chapters. It is easy enough for those who read this brief commentary to check out the Contents so I see no need to provide it. (Thanks Amazon!) He provides a "Lessons from...." section at the conclusion of most extended analyses. All of the usual suspects are discussed: New Coke, the Ford Edsel, Sony Betamax, McDonald's Arch DeLuxe, Campbell Soup (souper combo), Harley Davidson (perfume), Ben Gay (aspirin), Colgate (kitchen entrees). Pond's (toothpaste) in consumer products; as for dot.coms, Pets.com, VoicePod, and Excite@home. He even examines a number of PR fiascoes.

I take at least three lessons from Haig's book. First, even the largest organizations with the greatest resources (including some of the brightest people) can make bad brand decisions and sometimes repeat them with another failed attempt. Although they may be able to absorb or overcome such brand failure, almost all small organizations cannot. Second, that most brand failures result from launching a new product which encounters insufficient demand or marketing a current product for which demand is declining. Hence the importance of market research and especially of asking the customer. Ford did almost no research before introducing the Edsel nor did Coca-Cola before launching New Coke. Both line extensions were disasters. The overwhelming feedback from children surveyed indicated that they did not want Barbie's Ken to wear an earring but Mattel inserted one anyway. The third lesson is that the key to a brand's success (be it a product or service) is it authenticity. (You may prefer the word credibility.) Notice how intensively-hyped films may do well at the box office the first weekend but if they are duds, their sales tumble the following weekend and they are inevitably off the Top Ten list within a month or so, if not sooner. People are willing to try something new if they trust the provider. Lose that trust and there may never be an opportunity to re-earn it.

This is a lively, well-written, thought-provoking book. As I suggested earlier, its greatest value to each reader will be determined by what she or he has learned from Haig, and then, how much of that can be applied expeditiously and (more to the point) effectively.

14 of 14 found the following review helpful:


Failure doesn't always imply mistakes  Nov 14, 2004 By Adam Rutkowski
This book is a great collection of brand-related failures, and many of the incidents covered in this book are both entertaining and informative. However, while all of these cases show failure, I don't think that they all show mistakes. By 'mistake', I mean that the company made a foolish decision that they could reasonably be expected to have made differently at the time.

A lot of these failures we can see in hindsight were because of certain decisions, but it many cases, based on the information provided in the book, it doesn't seem that the decision was wrong given the knowledge and information at hand at the time.

In the end, this book is definitely a fun read for the most part, but most of the time the 'lessons learned' presented at the end of each case seem to be contradicted by some other company somewhere that made the same sorts of decisions and succeeded. Because of this, the only real lesson this book can teach is that there are no absolute rules to successful branding, and while there are certain guidelines that can usually be followed, there are always exceptions to the rules, and quite often the biggest successes have been the companies that defied conventional wisdom.

On a different note, I'm not sure how reliable the information in this book is, since two of the examples provided, the Chevy Nova, and Gerber's baby food in Africa, are regularly repeated examples, however they did not fail for the reasons presented in the book (which are the same reasons usually given by people who tell these stories). These may be exceptions, but they do make me question just how much research was put into the cases presented in the book.

7 of 7 found the following review helpful:


Could have been much, much better.  Nov 23, 2006 By James Grant
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.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:


Yeah, "New Coke" Probally Wasn't The Best of Ideas In The World  Dec 24, 2008 By Flap Jackson "Sky Is Burning, But At Least We Know We're Warm."
Non-fictional books are never useless. The only difference in its productiveness is how much information you can glean, whether it be how to do, or not to do. And in this book, there is much to glean, however, there are also parts that miss their marks.

"Branding Failures" is about failures in business, which is always great to study, as to not to repeat history. Each of the 100 cases looks at a business failure (classic, idea, extension, PR, cultural, people, rebranding, tired brands, and E-Failures) its story, and it's reason for failure. Each conclusion is mostly logical, even with a little help. In fact, not a case goes by where the author does not cite, or use another's writers explanation. Chiefly mentioned is the classic market manuel "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing," and authors Jack Trout and Al Ries. However, there's a point where these sources are cited so often, you're left wondering, 'why not just buy their book?' However, a book examining all these failures in one place differentiates itself from others, in addition to the great advice is gleaned from it. The author himself even adds some great advice every once in a while.

Also keep in mind that the author is of the UK, so there are a few companies that haven't crossed the pond, or are just local. For example, there's a London nightclub, and a few other British companies. So, there is a bit of a cultural barrier in understanding a few of the companies. It's also written in British grammar, so percent is written "per cent," and words will be spelled a bit differently. But the vocabulary is pretty comprehensible.

While books like "22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" primarily go into the principles of marketing, and only bring specific companies up as examples in aid to their teaching, "Branding Failures" goes in depth into why the case failed. While the book could have been better, it's still very informative, and it's at least worth a trip to the library.

5 of 7 found the following review helpful:


Not Worth Your Time Or Money.  Aug 13, 2007 By V. Sacson
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.

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