Reading
1 Read the text quickly and identify the product discussed in each paragraph. A plane/mobile phone B watch/radio C battery/car 2 Choose the best title for the text. 1 Product failure – what does it teach us? 2 How can we successfully market new products? 3 Three success stories – why a bad start doesn’t mean anything. 3 Match the paragraph titles (1–3) to the paragraphs (A–C). 1 In the right place but at the wrong time 2 In too much of a hurry 3 A good product but not smart enough
5 Match the underlined words in the article with the definitions. 1 defeated in a competitive situation 2 lots of things or people 3 become successful 4 told to leave a place because it isn’t safe 5 the only one of its kind 6 trust or confidence Critical thinkers 6 According to the text, which lessons were learnt about how to create a successful product? Choose. 1 Do extensive research on consumer preferences and prejudices. 2 Don’t spend too much money in the early stages. 3 Test your product on a small group of consumers first. 4 Make sure your product does something other products can’t do better. 5 Use your mistakes to change processes and procedures. 6 Try not to depend on others.
24 Which paragraph (A–C) tells us about … 1 an invention that was redesigned to be sold abroad. 2 an invention that had an effect on wearable technology today. 3 an invention that failed twice before it was removed from the market. 4 the fact that the invention was energy efficient, but unattractive. 5 the fact that other available products could do more than this gadget. 6 people who had their travel plans affected by this invention.
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For every success story, there are hundreds of products that have failed. Let’s look at what went wrong for these companies and try to learn a lesson or two.
A Samsung’s® Note 7 was marketed as ‘the best phone ever made’, in a race to compete with Apple’s iPhone®. However, Samsung soon recalled its product after dozens of Note 7s exploded. It then got worse. Several replacement phones caught fire and a Southwest Airlines plane was evacuated when a phone began smoking. Five days later, production was discontinued and the company lost billions of dollars. Several months of internal investigations followed: a design fault was found to have caused the phones’ overheating. Following this incident, processes to improve product safety were included in the testing phase. The investigation showed how important this testing phase is, even when there is pressure to bring to market new and exciting
B Microsoft’s® SPOT, or Smart Personal Object Technology, provided information to electronic devices over FM radio waves at a time when there was no wi-fi or Bluetooth. The first SPOT devices were smartwatches, made by international watch companies such as Fossil® and Swatch®. The SPOT Watch received weather information, news headlines and short messages and, as a unique feature, functioned as an independent, standalone device. But you couldn’t send messages. The product soon disappeared from the market as mobile phones were rapidly becoming smarter and the smartwatch became a smartphone accessory. Although it was outcompeted, you can see many of its design features in current watches, so not all was lost. C The Coda, a four-door electric car, was a product ahead of its time. It was manufactured by Chinese automotive company Hafei for China’s domestic market. The company redesigned it, with a better battery than other electric vehicles at the time, to sell on the international market. However, the electric car market hadn’t taken off yet. Coda wasn’t financially stable enough to wait for the market to grow and, crucially, the car’s body design did not appeal to consumers. It didn’t break the negative stereotype of the ‘ugly’ electric car at the time. Coda didn’t have enough funds to reinvest in a ‘wow’ design like Tesla®, and the Coda was removed from the market.
devices. A series of successful products have since restored customers’ faith in this South Korean giant’s reputation.
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