Since were in a "out with the old & busted, in with the new hotness" kind of mood this week, I thought it might be interesting to ponder some of the bad ideas throughout history (while having a little bit of silly fun).
It can be just a bad idea, or a terribly bad idea of Epic Fail proportions.
A little while back I did one of these where I asked about the most significant invention or discovery. With this one, what are some of the horrible things? It can be something serious, or something trivial. It could be something that looked good on paper and didn't pan out, or it could be something that's in the "WTF?" category where the people in charge had to either been high or out of their minds to think it would work. And there are even those horrible ideas that somehow work for a while, and you're left wondering how.
I love Cheetos inspired thought. Every time I bite into that cheese-like powdery substance, I know it has to be slowly killing me, but it's just oh-so good going down. When you take a step back, that bag of Cheetos represents one of the great achievements of mankind. Think of all the years of knowledge represented in the creation, packaging & mass production of food, just for some stoner out there to sit on his couch with his bong & a bag of chips.
However, for every bag of Cheetos, there is an Edsel... well... not really, but you get the idea.
Some bad ideas that come to mind:
- Segway - Probably one of the most hyped inventions in recent history. $6,000 for a machine that achieves the same thing walking does for free.
- Western Invasion of Russia - Especially in the winter time. Just ask Napoleon & Hitler if you don't want to take my word for it.
- Bluetooth Headsets - An entire country full of people walking around talking to themselves LOUDLY in public. I've been in classes where someone will talk on the bloody thing while the lecture is going on. And I would love for someone to show me the statistics on cell phone use & car accidents. I find it hard to believe that holding a four ounce cell phone to one's ear, is any more dangerous than fiddling with the radio, an mp3 player, the GPS navigation system, or my personal favorite, passing a car where someone is eating a sandwich with one hand while holding the steering wheel with the other.
- The Mullet - "Business in the front and party in the back" says it all.
- Spinner (wheel) - Probably one of the worst automotive trends ever. And it's doubly ridiculous when you see $5,000 twenty-two inch spinners on a piece of shit car. At some of the wheel shops they do "rent to own," and people come in and get one wheel at a time.
- Allowing The Lead Singer's Girlfriend To Give Input - Call it the "Yoko Rule." Anyone who used to watch VH1's "Behind The Music" knows there are three principal things that tear bands apart; 1) Ego, 2) Drugs, and 3) the lead singer's girlfriend appointing herself the band's manager.
- Vice Presidential Candidates From Alaska - See 2008 Presidential election.
- Regime Change For All The Wrong Reasons - See 2003 and a country whose name starts with an I.
- Spray On Tans - According to the Book of Genesis, God created the light & called it good. Add light to the melanocyte cells in your skin & it produces melanin, giving one a tan. However, what God most certainly did not create was the spray on tan. Unless you're making chocolate for Willy Wonka, orange is not a natural skin tone.
- Caulk Wagon & Float It Across - For those of us who played Oregon Trail on Apple II's in grade school, we all know how bad of an idea this usually is.
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One example I've always found fascinating is the dark tale of New Coke. So without further ado let me do my best Unitary Moonbat impression, except instead of discussing Pharaohs & ancient history, let's talk sugar water.
I'm not a big fan of coffee. I know some people who can't start the day without their double mocha... frappa... whatever the hella from Starbucks. My caffeine of choice is Coca-Cola. However, thank God I was too young to remember the dark days when they tried to screw with my ambrosia. During the Cola Wars of the 80s, Pepsi had eroded Coca-Cola's market share with things like the Pepsi Challenge. In 1985, the executives at The Coca-Cola Company decided to attempt a change in Coke's infamous secret formula, and for three months they did in what has become one of the most infamous product fiascoes ever.
The new formula, internally called "Project Kansas," was based on a re-engineering of the Diet Coke formula that made the drink sweeter than original Coca-Cola (which gave New Coke a taste closer to that of Pepsi). Before rolling the new drink out, The Coca-Cola Company performed market research surveys, focus groups and blind taste tests, where the results indicated the public preferred New Coke over Pepsi, and even the original Coca-Cola formula. This became important since Coke executives decided that allowing the old Coca-Cola formula to stay on shelves with New Coke wouldn't work, since (among other things) it might divide Coke sales & allow Pepsi to claim a lead.
In Mark Pendergrast's book, "For God, Country And Coca-Cola", he details what happened when Coke executives unveiled their creation.
A hostile reporter, phoning from the traditional Coca-Cola heartland of Houston, began to ask a question but turned it into a protest: "Are you tell-I mean if we wanted Pepsi, we'd buy Pepsi," prompting a big laugh from her fellow journalists.
And how in the Hell does a drink taste "rounder"?
New Coke was introduced on April 23rd, 1985. At first, all of the publicity helped sales of New Coke meet expectations. However, as time went on after New Coke's introduction, sales leveled off and a backlash started not only from customers, but also from bottlers who spent years promoting a drink that was "The Real Thing" and" "Always" Coca-Cola, constant, unchanging, that had been changed.
Company headquarters in Atlanta started receiving angry letters expressing deep disappointment and anger at executives. Over 400,000 calls and letters were received by the company. A psychiatrist Coke hired to listen in on phone calls to the company hotline, 1-800-GET-COKE, told executives some people sounded as if they were discussing the death of a family member.
From the June 24th, 1985 edition of Time:
Dennis Overstreet, the owner of a wine store in Beverly Hills, bought 500 cases of the old stuff when he heard of the change. Two weekends ago, Overstreet sold the last of his stock, at $1.25 a 6 1/2-oz. bottle, or $30 a case. "They lined up around the block," he said. "It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life." One customer: Rock Singer Al Stewart (Time Passages), who called from London and put five cases on his American Express card.
Weldon Tanner, 43, an Atlanta businessman, has been stashing the old Coke in his pantry since April 23, the day Coke announced the change. He often consumes six bottles a day, though, and had reduced his inventory to ten cases by the end of last week. Tanner plans to head north, to small towns in North Carolina, to look for more. "I plan to work the boondocks," he says, "and I'm sure I'll find some there."
On July 10th, 1985, The Coca-Cola Company relented and reintroduced a version of the original Coke formula as Coca-Cola Classic. On the floor of the United States Senate, Senator David Pryor (D-AR) called the reintroduction of Coca-Cola "a meaningful moment in American history." The reaction among customers was interesting too.
Eighteen thousand calls of gratitude jammed the toll-free line on the day of the announcement. Now the mail inundating the company read like love letters. "Thank you for bringing old Coke back," wrote one sixty-eight-year-old woman. "The only thing better is sex!" Astonished Coke marketer Ike Herbert remarked, "You would have thought we had invented a cure for cancer."
"I drank Coke the morning of my wedding to calm me... My first request after the births of my two children was for a Coke on ice. I drank a Coke on the way to my father's funeral... You've made my day and I appreciate that."
"I feel like a lost friend is returning home."
In the end, the failure of New Coke reinvigorated the original Coca-Cola product, which has held a lead in the soft-drink market ever since.
Some time after the New Coke debacle, the Wall Street Journal did a blind taste test of 100 randomly selected cola drinkers. It included fifty-two Pepsi loyalist, forty-six who favored Coke, and two who liked New Coke. When they tested the group "New Coke was the winner with 41 votes, followed by Pepsi with 39 and Coke Classic with 20." The reaction of people in the test group was they couldn't believe they had chosen something they claimed not to like.
Various theories have been proposed to explain this. One is that having someone take a few sips from cups of cola, and then form an opinion based on that (like in the Pepsi Challenge) is a flawed way to test how people actually choose what they enjoy to drink. For example, Pepsi & New Coke were sweeter, so it might taste good in a small amount, but some of the group that chooses either of 'em in a blind taste test, might later find the drinks "sickening" in a larger quantity (e.g. regularly drinking the amount in normal sized containers over the course of a week or month).
Over the years this entire fiasco has been analyzed & debated, with many conspiracy theories popping up trying to explain why The Coca-Cola Company created New Coke. Among the more interesting:
- Coca-Cola introduced New Coke in order to transition from cane sugar to cheaper high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which was used in New Coke & still used in the American version of Coca-Cola Classic. However, according to Snopes, five years before the introduction of New Coke, fifty percent of Coca-Cola on the market was already using high fructose corn syrup, and six months before New Coke all of the old Coke inside the United States was using HFCS.
- New Coke's formula was intended to remove the company's dependence on Coca leaves, which was a part of the original Coca-Cola formula, and is still a part of the Coca-Cola Classic formula sold today.
- As a part of a cunning plan, The Coca-Cola Company intended for New Coke to fail. And under the idea that you never know what you have until you lose it, taking the old drink away increased consumers attachment to the brand.
Or, the much simpler explanation; they fucked up & got lucky.