Capitalism is at the core of our society; businesses and corporations produce consumer goods. This system breeds innovation. However, with a competitive free market, a company cannot create just one product in the same way and continue to be successful indefinitely. As time passes, products must be revamped, upgraded, and improved.

Sometimes, the public loves a new version of an old favorite. Other times, not only do the people not like it, but the product falls so far from the mark that stores can’t give the stuff away. Frequently, a company will spend millions on advertising campaigns and marketing, whether a new twist on an old favorite or an entirely new item. When a well-known company does so and can still not move the product, it is deemed a “dud.” These are the ten biggest duds of all time.

Related: Top 10 Bizarre Cancelled Food Products

10 Crystal Pepsi, 1992

In 1992, not for the first time, Pepsi tried to push a new version of its classic cola. Crystal Pepsi was sold in the U.S., Australia, and Europe for two years. The product failed due to branding issues, corporate sabotage from archrival Coca-Cola, and overall consumer dissatisfaction with the flavor of the product.

These factors culminated in one of the most well-known product flops in history. The YUM! Corporation took over operations for Pepsi Crystal and received many complaints that the product didn’t taste enough like Pepsi; they did nothing about it. Despite an attempted reboot in 2016, the product has never justified the millions spent on ad campaigns and is still considered an epic fail.^[1]

9 Apple Newton, 1993

The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed by Apple Inc. It was technologically innovative, but it had early issues with its handwriting recognition software, and combined with ridiculous prices, the product ultimately failed. Apple originally started development on the Newton in 1987. The device hit the shelves in August 1993, and production ended in February 1998.

According to former Apple CEO John Sculley, the company invested approximately $100 million to develop the device, and the term “Personal Digital Assistant” was first coined in reference to the Newton. While Apple did profit from the Newton, other companies developed their own, more affordable PDAs, causing sales to spiral. The product was discontinued after five years and is still considered a monumental flop.^[2]

8 RJ Reynolds’ Smokeless Cigarettes, 1989

RJ Reynolds is the producer of cigarette brands such as Newport and Camel. The company has been pushing tobacco for well over a hundred years. While under pressure from anti-smoking campaigns throughout the 1980s, Reynolds put over $300 million into a new product, “The Smokeless Cigarette.” The scheme was just as laughable as it sounds. This product allowed the tobacco to be heated but not ignited; the taste and scent produced were not the same as a lit cigarette.

The smokeless cigarette was only tested in a handful of cities in Arizona and Missouri. In addition to a substandard flavor, the cigarette was difficult to light and did not actualize the task of creating a carcinogen-free cigarette. After only five months, the product was pulled from shelves. According to a March 1, 1989 issue of the New York Times, Reynolds discontinued the cigarette because consumers had decisively rejected it.^[3]

7 McDonald’s Arch Deluxe, 1996

McDonald’s has been adding to its menu for decades, and in 1996, the fast food giant introduced the Arch Deluxe. It targeted a sophisticated demographic and was just as successful as one would think. After spending over $150 million on marketing campaigns, the burger was removed from the menu before the decade was up. Despite recruiting fine dining chef Andrew Selvaggio to create the sandwich, sophisticated suburbanites weren’t interested. It consisted of a quarter pound of beef on a split-top sesame seed potato bun, topped with a circular piece of peppered bacon, leaf lettuce, tomato, American cheese, onions, ketchup, and Dijonnaise sauce.

The Arch Deluxe was the greatest failure in McDonald’s marketing history. Through ad firm issues, a disinterested demographic, and a lack of support from franchisees, this product has become known as “A hell of a burger and a hell of a flop.” Prior to launch, the Arch was projected to bring in $1 billion to McDonald’s; needless to say, it fell short of the mark. In 2018, the company tried to reboot the product with the Arch Burger, a similar sandwich with a similar result, compounding McDonald’s most epic failure.^[4]

6 Cosmopolitan Yogurt, 1999

Cosmopolitan magazine has existed since the 1880s and is widely regarded as the standard in fashion and family magazines. For unknown reasons, the company produced a yogurt line in 1999. The late ’90s and early 2000s saw an overly saturated yogurt market, and the product was discontinued after only 18 months. The tasty snack was overpriced at over a dollar per unit. Combining sex and dairy was a long shot, and “Cosmo” readers were not impressed.

The brand extension Cosmopolitan employed is called piggyback marketing; it accounted for an underwhelming product launch and was the only marketing the product saw. “While there is not a lot of information on the details of Cosmo’s failed venture, it is clear that the product faced a significant lack of connection to the Cosmo brand and its other products. In the end, the brand extension (or piggyback marketing) attempted by Cosmo was too much of a long shot.” Cosmo had created an overpriced product in a saturated market and had ignored a potential demographic, leading to its most epic fail.^[5]

5 Google Glasses, 2012

Project Glass is a “Moonshot” technology developed under the Google (GOOG) X initiative. The product was mismarketed, giving the public a distorted view of what to expect from Glass. Initially, it was to be promoted as a futuristic prototype, but the hype built up around the launch, coupled with a high price tag. Glass subsequently failed to meet expectations.

Google spent hundreds of millions of dollars rolling out this product between research, development, and marketing. Unfortunately, they spent little to no money explaining it. The product was not intuitive and did not deliver what consumers felt they were promised. In just three years, Google discontinued the product; the marketing team had dropped the ball. There was no actual launch, explanation of the product, or mainstream advertising, and it was difficult to purchase. While this product had potential, it turned into an epic fail.^[6]

4 Mobile ESPN, 2006

Introduced in January 2006, ESPN Mobile was a short-lived “mobile virtual network operator,” or MVNO. ESPN’s idea was to sell phones exclusively offering ESPN content and video, leasing network access from Verizon Wireless. But ESPN had only one phone at launch, an overpriced Sanyo device. No one bought the product, even after ESPN sunk $150 million into it, including a reported $30 million on a Super Bowl ad. Despite the investment, the project reached only six percent of its sales projection.

The idea was scrapped by the end of 2006, less than a year after its launch. Mobile ESPN may be the biggest failure in the company’s history, but it also set the stage for ESPN to dominate the industry. Although the service was considered overpriced and a failure, in retrospect, the actual data and audio-visual backbone and software behind the service would be re-adapted successfully for the smartphone age several years later, untied to a specific carrier.^[7]

3 Gerber Singles, 1974

In 1974, Gerber Foods decided to innovate the baby food industry with food targeted to… adults. They produced small jars of beef burgundy, Mediterranean vegetables, and blueberry delight. As Gerber has been making baby food since 1927, it seemed the 1970s were the perfect time to move into adult food. One small problem: No one wanted a spoonful of creamed beef.

While the logic is sound, something about eating dinner out of a small glass jar turned out to be unappealing to even the most solitary people. Gerber’s marketing team believed the product would work based on the lower birth and marriage rates at the time. They saw 40 million singles, representing roughly $205 million in unsold profits. While it was a valiant effort, Gerber Singles was an epic fail.^[8]

2 Ford Edsel, 1957

Bill Gates cites the Edsel as his favorite case study. Even the name “Edsel” is synonymous with “marketing failure.” Henry Ford was the original car maker, and Ford Motors created some of the most classic automobiles in history. In 1957, they introduced the Edsel, an expansion of the Lincoln-Mercury Division to three brands: the Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln Division. The model was named after Ford’s son, Edsel Ford.

Americans wanted smaller, more economical cars. However, Ford Motors execs failed to define the model’s niche in the car market. Most Edsel models’ pricing and market aim were too high for a product that consumers did not want. It was taken off the market in 1960.^[9]

1 Betamax, 1975

Back in the 1970s, there was a massive rivalry between home video formats, VHS vs. Betamax. Beta was released in 1975 and allowed consumers to record up to one hour of television footage, while the VHS equivalent released in 1977 allowed for two, and the war between the two began. This feud lasted more than a decade, and while both recording formats have their unique qualities, they are very similar, which caused the format war to drag on for years.

In the end, VHS won despite Betamax having a higher resolution. VHS became preferable to most consumers due to its affordability and recording time. Despite being somewhat popular for nearly a decade, today, many people have never even heard of Betamax; it is the greatest epic fail of all time.^[10]

It takes a lot more to be a successful music artist than it would seem, and part of the job is promoting yourself and your music. Some artists have gone to the most ridiculous lengths to get attention, and these are some of the most wild. 

8. Pearl Jam Had People Point Their Phones At The Moon

Musicians have been fascinated with the moon for years. One band, however, didn’t just want to write a song about the moon, they wanted to use the great celestial body as a promotional tool to sell that song. The band in question was Pearl Jam. To show off their song “Superblood Wolfmoon,” the band partnered with Powster, a studio that’s created websites for major movies and has an app that created cartoon effects on photos.

To hear the sneak preview, you had to download Powster’s app on your phone, wait for night to fall, and then walk outside to a clear spot, open the app, and aim your phone’s camera at the moon. If it works, then animations will start up and the song will play for you as you stand alone in a moonlit field in the middle of the night, and confused wild animals attracted by the noise wonder how we ever became the apex predator.

Oh, and if it was a cloudy night, well, that’s just tough.

7. Multiple Musicians Have Created Mocking Versions of Real Websites

If you’re an artist in need of some promotion, why not show your cred the easy way and take a hilarious swipe at a giant corporation? As a lot of musicians have proven, it’s a tried and true method, but it does still need a degree of originality.

Take electro-rockers Tanlines, who constructed an entire faux-Netflix website to show off their album Highlights. Not only did the duo create convincing movie posters for each of the tracks on their album (starring themselves, naturally), they also made playlists of real movies, some to symbolize their tour schedule and some to just make jokes. Charitably, Netflix have somehow let the site stand, and you can still visit it today. Or if you want a more petty version, indie rock gods Arcade Fire released a review of their then-new album Everything Now on a site called “Stereoyum,” a playful jab at music site Stereogum. Obviously written by the band, the review was dismissive of the record, in a preemptive shot at the critics who were all too ready to compare it to their earlier works.

The most audacious stunt of this kind though, has to have been the one singer-songwriter Josh Tillman, aka Father John Misty pulled. Just before the release of his breakout album I Love You, Honeybear, he dropped a preorder using his own unique audio service, Streamline Audio Protocol, or SAP. It made the songs sound completely wrenched of personality and made a very striking point about Spotify and music streaming services in general.  

What really made it spicy, however, was the show Tillman was playing the day it went live: a couple of songs with a karaoke machine at Spotify headquarters.

6. Josh Freese Holds A Kickstarter Before Kickstarter Became A Thing

Josh Freese is one of the many people quietly making music great, even if he’s not well known. Starting his career as a 12-year-old drummer in the Disneyland band, he’s made hundreds of records and been a member of bands like Nine Inch Nails, Guns N’ Roses, and Devo. Still, a sideman like Josh needs a stage of his own sometimes, so he has embarked on solo projects, even if they have as much impact “as a tree falling in the woods,” according to him. However, one would make a much louder crash than he expected. 

To promote his second solo album, Since 1972, Freese decided to throw in some unique offerings. Depending on what someone paid for the record ($7 to a whopping $75,000!), they could receive anything from a gradually insane list of packages that Freese vowed to fulfill personally. For example, one fan shelled out $20,000 and got to go with Freese on various adventures, like miniature golfing with Maynard James Keenan of Tool, having a pizza party with Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, floating in a sensory deprivation tank, touring and staying aboard the Queen Mary for a night, and finally joining Freese in the studio to record two songs specifically about him, among other things. 

As crazed as it all sounds, it turns out Freese was actually a visionary. Since 1972 dropped in March of 2009 and barely a month later, Kickstarter debuted on the Internet, allowing people to finance creative projects in exchange for special rewards, just like Freese did. It’s unclear if Freese regrets this missed business opportunity, but he was probably called away by another rock star in need before he had time to reflect.  

5. Poppy Creates A Church

The enigmatic musician Poppy has had a very storied career, going from an apparently unstable YouTuber to a pop-metal mashup queen in a short few years. Poppy, however, harbored other aspirations besides music, and expanded into a variety of related mediums like graphic novels and films. Unlike most musicians who similarly diversify though, Poppy also went for a more befitting, if terrifyingly unique, venture: becoming a religious leader.

In 2018, as Poppy was making her metallic transformation, she put up a new website called Poppy.church, which appeared to be a social media platform run by a cult, or as Poppy put it, “a collection of passionate individuals.” Fans who had previously submitted their phone number would enter after making an avatar, signing their name in “blood,” and witnessing a strange “prayer” led by Poppy. Inside, users could chat with one another, buy tickets to Poppy’s upcoming tour, and other activities. Your profile would also have measurements for “faith,” “devotion,” and “loyalty,” and the site would inform you that your actions were being monitored.

The YouTuber Repzilla did a walkthrough of the site to see whether or not it was a cult simulation, as some who saw the site claimed, and whether this was meant to be educational, or if Poppy genuinely wanted that sort of following.  

The site was eventually closed down, and Poppy has continued on with her career after a vitriolic breakup with her former collaborator Titanic Sinclair, which makes the whole Poppy.church experiment seem more like a warning.  

4. Nine Inch Nails Hid USB Drives In Bathrooms And Created An Entire Dystopian Web Game

From February to April 2007, Nine Inch Nails fans started discovering several strange clues during the band’s European tour, and others that were hidden in Nine Inch Nails’ various releases. What they couldn’t have guessed on finding them was just how deep a rabbit hole they would be pulled into: a spiraling alternate reality game they had to piece together.

The first major discoveries occurred when fans in need of a piss stumbled onto mysterious USB flash drives, which contained songs from the then upcoming Year Zero album. Once those were found, they were immediately passed around the Internet, which drove the Recording Industry Association of America nuts. Meanwhile, other fans who had bought NIN tour merchandise and releases started finding hidden phone numbers and URLs that led to chilling websites, depictions of what Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor believed to be the United States’ future under George W. Bush. Indeed, some of them were almost prophetic, with references to chemicals leaking into water supplies, a movement called “Art Is Resistance,” and one website that showed a beautiful farmland with the slogan “America Is Born Again,” only to disappear when clicked on and dragged to show complete destruction.     

Despite the ties to Year Zero, Reznor did not consider the game a mere marketing stunt, but rather an extension of the album that augmented a fan’s experiences. “Essentially, I wrote the soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist,” he said.     

3. Bjork’s Biophilia Album Was a Series of Trippy Apps

Through a 40 year career, Bjork has been walking so people like Lady Gaga could run wild. But then came 2011’s Biophilia, and it seemed the Icelandic musician had leapt into a world unseen since the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.   

Kicked off with a narration by the master of animal commentary David Attenborough, the songs were presented alongside accompanying graphic animations that you could play with. As listeners toyed with the app, some songs like “Moon” could be changed in different ways while the music was still playing, as a befuddled Stephen Colbert demonstrated on The Colbert Report. Other songs like “Virus” and “Dark Matter” would stop and force the user to win minigames to keep hearing the album. Despite the twisted, acid-drenched appearance, the animations were somehow still scientifically accurate and educational.   

While the album was a reasonable commercial success, it did also earn a place in art history when Biophilia became the first app to join the Museum of Modern Art’s collection in 2014. It could also play a role in education in the future, as Iceland and Bjork started the Biophilia Educational Project to teach students of all ages and levels the lessons contained in the album.   

2. AKB48 Holds Rock-Paper-Scissors Tournaments

The Japanese idol girl group AKB48 debuted with a novel concept: create female stars that the public could watch perform any time they wanted. To this end, they kicked off with a mind-boggling 48 members that were cycled around various events in Japan, so no fan would miss out.

But fourteen years later with an active roster of over 100 members (and that’s not counting the spin off groups in other countries), not everyone can get in the spotlight, and often the top spots in the group are determined by a member’s popularity. Therefore, they decided to settle this with the fairest method ever developed by man: rock-paper-scissors. In 2010, the producers behind the group instituted an annual single elimination rock paper scissors tournament that every girl in AKB48 can participate in. The last girl standing gets a solo debut or a solo concert.

As silly as the idea sounds, the janken tournaments are serious business, because it can get one of AKB48’s girls a massive boost of exposure, which will make them more popular and help their careers. Accordingly, the event is as must-see for AKB48 fans as the concerts themselves, with sold out arenas, members wearing cosplay outfits, and a massive emotional rush when the ultimate winner is victorious. The 2017 tournament, which saw the victory of the relatively unknown member Miku Tanabe, was so moving it made international news.

1. U2 “Gift” An Entire Album On To Everyone’s iTunes Library

U2 have always been pretty audacious, whether you’re someone who loves them for it or thinks they’re pretentious goofballs who fancy themselves humanitarians. However, their biggest shark jump wouldn’t come until Apple bought their soon to be released Songs of Innocence album in 2014 for about $100 million. 

It made sense at the time because U2 and Apple have always had a pretty cozy relationship, from Steve Jobs and Bono being friends to U2 helping promote the iPod’s release with a collaborative commercial and their own signature iPod. But there would be no friendly backslapping or even profit after this deal went down.     

When 500 million people with an iTunes account discovered Songs of Innocence in their libraries, U2 and Apple quickly found out that they might as well have given away gonorrhea-infected crap piles. The album wasn’t well received by critics, and U2 was not exactly a huge name to a generation that almost exclusively consumed music digitally, to say nothing of the invasion of privacy issues. Users denounced both the band and Apple for foisting the album on them, and “How to remove U2 from iPhone” became a top Google search within minutes, to the point Apple had to set up a site for customers to do just that.