What are some examples of brand innovation and extension failures and what can we learn from them?

Remember the Microsoft Zune? This was a digital player that was to compete against the IPod and after big marketing dollars were thrown at the product it never caught on and ultimately went to the scrap heap.

The coffee and donut chain Tim Hortons is a cultural symbol of Canadian identity. In many ways, the brand represents Canadian core values such as inclusiveness, a strong sense of community, and aversion to showiness and ostentation. In 2014, Tim Hortons introduced a new, darker roast coffee to compete with other premium coffee brands. However, the new product didn't resonate with their loyal customers, and sales dropped. They re-introduced the Dark Roast in 2017, only to fail again. In 2021, Tim Hortons had to re-"re-introduced" the product. It even tried positioning it as Dark Roast an "organizational mea culpa" story (https://www.timhortons.ca/dark-roast)

Brand innovation must go hand in hand with Customer needs. When a brand becomes part of the customer's identity, innovation game should compliment their lifestyle and who they believe they are...

I absolutely agree however despite the emotional attachment and loyalty to Classic. Diet Cokes and Sugar free are both products that are doing great. This is because all customers should be considered, regardless of how a certain demographic feels. Each customer’s beliefs and preferences is to be taken into account. That’s how you define highly rated products.

Although this was a disaster for Coke, Pepsi really missed a trick in making its marketing customer-centric and responsive to the market needs. If only they'd gone with the marketing slogan "it's Pepsi, is that alright?", they'd have won over a loyal audience with a good sense of humour.

To be fair to Bic, they also released a Bic phone in 2009, leveraging the same brand tenets as their other products: low price, and accessibility. This product has been successful and sales exceeded expectations for a while. In addition to helping them highlights their core values of accessibility and low price, it helped them reach new customers in their existing retailers (the bic Phone was sold in Tobacco shops, where their lighters were already sold) and increase the average revenue per point of sales, which is key in a distribution strategy.

In my opinion it's important for brands to concentrate on their core businesses. In the case of Cosmopolitan magazine their core business is researching and reporting on trends that the magazine is well known for as well as writing stories to educate and entertain their audience. The yogurt category, like other categories at grocery, is very cluttered. In my opinion, the publishing house should have focused on introducing a line extension either in publishing or something that the magazine is known for in their reporting -- fashion.