From Amazon.com
What Were They Thinking?, by 30-year marketing industry veteran Robert McMath and journalist Thom Forbes, clearly spells out its cautionary contents in its subtitle:
Marketing Lessons I've Learned from over 80,000 New-Product Innovations and Idiocies. The insightful suggestions for avoiding the extraordinarily damaging (or at least extremely embarrassing) commercial misstep, illustrated perfectly by tales of formidable foul-ups from days of yore, ensure that this trip down memory lane can be more than just a pleasure cruise. Nonetheless, it's simply fun to relive such agonies as Ben-Gay Aspirin, Rabbit Jerky, and of course, New Coke.
--Howard Rothman
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-McMath has packed such a terrific amount of information into this small, easily read book that it could serve as a marketing text, although it is not organized or written as such. In fact, it is arranged alphabetically by subject headings, such as, for the letter G, "Go with the Flow," "Greasy, Gloppy and Glorious," and "Gulp!" (Sound like an adman's vocabulary?) The goofy arrangement is useless to researchers; its apparent intent is to organize somehow the broad array of business savvy the author has accumulated over the years. However, if every company with a new product to market had welcomed the honest advice McMath offers, some of the many failures he discusses might not have happened. He does note that the cost of bringing products to market makes it difficult for entrepreneurs to compete with large companies. Just the few pages on the inner workings of supermarket product "positioning" is invaluable in explaining what reaches the shelf and why. A good index saves the day for report writers. Useful not only for marketing and psychology students, but also for those studying market manipulation by advertisers.
Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
