What Were They Thinking? : Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from Products That Flopped

Those ignorant of the mistakes of the past are bound to lose a lot of money.  That's why Bob McMath founded the New Products Showcase and Learning Center--a "Smithsonian for Stinkers," Business Week dubbed it.  There, executives from top corporations pay huge amounts of money to rummage through some 80,000 products gone awry.  Their mission: to avoid the misguided, expensive, and occasionally ludicrous mistakes that trip up even top companies.

In What Were They Thinking?, McMath shows you how to avoid such mistakes, with more that eighty marketing lessons he's learned  from his long experience with clods and clunkers.  As People magazine put it "McMath knows his goods--and his uglies, too"--and here he shows you how to:

  Steer clear of the number one killer of new products  (page 129)

  Develop a marketing campaign based on a "Significant Point of Difference"  (page 183)

  Take advantage of eight  "Hot Buttons for Success in the Millennium"  (page 101)

  Keep out of the "Buy-This-If-You're-a-Loser School of Marketing"  (page 28)

  Combat "Corporate Alzheimer's"  (page 4)

and much more !

Those ignorant of the mistakes of the past are bound to lose a lot of money. That's why Bob McMath founded the New Products Showcase and Learning Center -- a "Smithsonian for Stinkers", Business Week dubbed it. There, executives from top corporations pay huge amounts of money to rummage through some 80,000 products gone awry. Their mission: to avoid the misguided, expensive, and occasionally ludicrous mistakes that trip up even top companies.

In What Were They Thinking?, McMath shows you how to avoid such mistakes, with more than eighty marketing lessons he's learned from his long experience with clods and clunkers. As People magazine put it, "McMath knows his goods -- and his bads and uglies, too" -- and here he shows you how to:

(PAGE 129)
-- Steer clear of the number one killer of new products

(PAGE 183)
-- Develop a marketing campaign based on a "Significant Point of Difference"

(PAGE 101)
-- Take advantage of eight "Hot Buttons for Success in the Millennium"

(PAGE 28)
-- Keep out of the "Buy-This-If-You're-a-Loser School of Marketing"

(PAGE 4)
-- Combat "Corporate Alzheimer's" and much more