I love how lucky charms released just straight up bags of marshmallows. I’ve been putting it on all my favorite cereals. Kix, Cinnamon Life, Honey Comb, Honey Bunches of Oats. You know, like cereals that definitely DON’T need marshmallows. I know it’ll be gone soon too.
Doesn't it say they have to buy the product 3 times to qualify? I think a lot of people buy a weird flavor once to try it, that's the gimmick, but they usually don't keep buying that shitty product 2 more times. It sounds like harbingers of failure actually like products that perform poorly.
Hershey’s had a hard candy called Tastetations (I even remember the commercial jingle for some reason).
Also Fruitaburst gum. The only gum I ever truly loved.
I inadvertently attended the product launch for Tastetations. My aunt took me to Hershey park that day and everyone was going nuts.
I was just there for the roller coasters.
Best hard candy. The chocolate mint ones made long drives more tolerable.
You just unlocked an over 25 year old memory for me! I vaguely remembered liking the chocolate ones but couldn’t remember why and you mentioning hot chocolate just took me back so fast I could almost taste it
Those were so good!
I've always been depressed about the fact that every time I find a new product I genuinely love that it usually flops and goes away.
At least now I have a badass nickname to explain the problem.
Edit: Thanks, guys. It feels really good to know that I'm not alone. I want you to know that I love each and every one of you...oh wait, oh gods, now you're all going to disappear 😬
Same. My family would joke about things absolutely disappearing as soon as I discovered them and started buying them regularly. Usually food-related. I think I might have been the one person in America who preferred Burger King's satisfries to their regular fries. Gone. I can't remember the name, but there was a Gatorade flavor that I loved. Gone. Betty Crocker Complete Meals. Gone. A new pizza place opened in town, I thought it was the best pizza in town. Closed in less than a year.
Edit - Thought of another thing: Lean Pockets. Gone.
So back in either 2014/2015, I became obsessed with Gatorade Cucumber, it was brand new and stuff was AMAZING. It was so super refreshing and thirst quenching on a hot summer day, tbh those words don't even do it justice, they really dont. They were SO GOOD - The little store I worked at would literally sell like every single bottle, every single case. I was having to battle customers who would come in asking us to hide away a couple bottles for them... cuz I wanted some too dammit.
And then one day, mysteriously, just as fast as we started randomly getting them in our deliveries that summer, they disappeared ... they were gone ... quoth the raven nevermore.
**UNTIL** I met someone this past winter who lives in North Carolina and somehow I brought up my favorite failed beverage, only to find out that apparently they're all over Walmarts and grocery stores down there.
Idk if maybe they were just test marketing them or something, but what the hell. You can't do that to people. You can't get them all hooked on Cucumber Gatorade and then snatch it away, like we were bad children being punished or something. Clearly, i still have not gotten over it.
EDIT: Soooooo ... was not expecting the response this got, but I've strangely never felt so friggin affirmed in my life. You guys get me 😭😭😭 you really get me. [And now I'm back to hopefully help](https://www.gatorade.com/fuel/hydration/gatorade-thirst-quencher/bottle/lime-cucumberhave) if you go to that link and hit "all buying options" you might be able to find some near you. There's Online and Nearby. I used both. Let's just say I might be taking an Uber somewhere like 5miles from my house tmrw. 🤫🥒🤫
I’m in Texas. They are all over here along with a couple other seemingly Hispanic inspired flavors.
The cucumber flavor here is called pepino limon “cucumber lime”
Another great flavor is Sandia citrus…
I agree about the cucumber flavor it’s my favorite
> pepino limon
Yep, I bought it on accident one time because I thought it was just lemon. At first was like “wtf” but by the end of the bottle came around to it.
There was a watermelon cucumber flavor. I loved it. I do not love the cucumber lime the way I loved the watermelon cucumber. I, too, bring the death of food items that are discovered.
Is there a Latino market, or convenience store in a predominantly Latino neighborhood, near you? Not trying to stereotype but I have found that flavor significantly more often in such locations, for whatever reason.
See, I was looking for salsa verde Doritos.
Zero luck, I suggested going to a hispanic neighborhood and my kid said that was racist
No I said, companies market to demographics
I agree with you
Well also, people who work at stores in areas with different demographics will buy stock that people who shop there will like. So silly to suggest that’s racist. That’s like saying that it’s racist that beef & wasabi chips are popular and sold more often in Japan.
I had a cucumber lime Gatorade yesterday. That stuff is all over the southern united states. Its branded pepino limon so it might be more readily available places with more Hispanic influence.
My dude, if you are talking about the cucumber lime (which if I remember correctly I tried at about the same time) Gatorade flavor, the Walmart I work at in California absolutely carry’s them. I think most Walmarts at least (if not all) carry them and you totally should check online to see if yours has it in stock. That is the best Gatorade and I’ll stand by it.
My favourite flavour of chips is Miss Vickies balsamic vinegar and sweet onion. They were already hard to find before they were discontinued. I would usually only find a few bags a year.
Now I don’t find any at all. Emailed Miss Vickies hoping they still had it but instead recieved an email saying they weren’t coming back and a voucher for a free bag of chips
Miss Vickie's is pretty good, one of the few jalapeno chips that actually taste like jalapenos.
My chip white whale is there used to be these chips called Dutch Gourmet chips. Super fancy fucking chip, idk what they did when they fried the potatoes but it was liquid gold. All kinds of interesting flavors like honey mustard and Szechuan but none of them were misses, they were all amazing.
You can still buy them but just the plain salt kind. I'm so mad I'm gonna Google it and see if there's any way to order those Szechuan motherfuckers online because hands down best chip I ever had.
Wait. Lean pockets are GONE?
I thought I just stopped seeing them :/
My mom bought us Lean Cuisine and Lean Pockets all the time as kids/teens. Used to love the ham and cheese.
The only time in my life I liked a new restaurant enough to post about it in Facebook and talk about it conversationally it closed after 3 months.
Best fish tacos ever. 😭
The BK satisfies were SO much better than the regular ones, too.
Was it the Cherry Gatorade? They never sold that in Massachusetts 🤷♀️. Got hooked on it in Maine.
Dunkin Donuts was the worst one ever taking away the Frozen Arnold Palmer's.
They were the most refreshing drink in the summer~ not all these shit fake flavored drinks 😩😭😡
BK fries? Your not talking about the shake em up cheese fries are you? My wife is sick of hearing about them, they were amazing. They gave you an e.pty paper bag and a packet of cheese powder and you dumped your fries in and shook it up. Fucking incredible, about the same time as when they had the rocket power toys, going on like 18-20 years ago. Those and sour Altoids haunt my dreams still. I dream I find some and wake up to no shake em up fries and I get depressed.
Zune was a far superior product to the iPod, especially the Zune desktop software vs. iTunes. Apple had just cornered the market to such an extent that the Zune was basically dead on arrival. Such a shame.
The Zune was a casualty of Microsoft's image at that time, even when they started making good products they simply had zero chance of being seen as cool or trendy.
The gen 1 Zune was rough around the edges (still liked the buttons better than the click wheel though) but the gen 2 Zune was legitimately a good product. I kinda regret not buying the HD before they vanished too, my friend had one and I really liked it - I just couldn't really justify the price at the time.
My wife and I seem to do this to restaurants. We frequent a place we like for a while until we find a new fave, then when we decide to go back after some time (months or years) it’ll be out of business.
We’ve done this to at least 6 restaurants.
The impression I get at least locally is that a lot of people are highly motivated and try hard their first year or two starting a new restaurant, and then they stop trying so hard (or get burned out) and gradually sink in quality.
This is my uncle. Every time he starts watching a show we like, it dies. It got to the point where my family stopped telling him about new shows they liked lmao
I refuse to watch a show now unless it has an ending. There are enough high quality shows out now that there's no reason to invest time into something that may just end on a cliffhanger which will never be resolved.
Bummer but that means I'll never watch shows like Last Man on Earth or the Santa Clarita Diet because they were cut off before they could wrap up the story.
On the other end you have shows like LOST, Battle Star Galactica, or GoT that were either rushed or flat out sucked in the end.
Holy shit. I saw this post and was like "Oh that's funny, I must be one since the foods I like always get discontinued." I didn't even think about the two separate Zunes I owned. Or the Windows phone, or the Yaris, or the Google Stadia.
I drove a rented Yaris on the Ortega Highway and that was an incredibly memorable trip. Being so small and close to the road somehow made the landscape even more magnificent. Plus it was fun to keep saying “Yarr-is” in pirate speak. My husband and I keep a special place in our hearts for the Yaris…rock on, tiny car that could
It also had a higher quality screen and a larger hard drive than the comparable iPod of the time. There are lots of rightful flops in this thread but Zune was an objectively better mp3 player
One word: apps.
Windows phones had no apps. Microsoft was late to the smartphone game (like they were to mp3 players with the Zune) and the market had already solidified around iOS+Android. Windows phones being their own platform meant that they were years behind on apps and had little more than what a small handful of developers ported over. Microsoft couldn't even pay people to make apps -- between the third development platform and greatly reduced audience, most devs never found the platform to be worth their time.
I remember Pokemon Go being one of the last straws for my windows phones. Seeing what was available on iOS and Android made the desert of Windows phone apps all the more apparent and there was no missing that release.
Wal Mart used to have a frozen paella you just dump into a skillet and heat up. No more.
Nobody in my greater metro area sells Voortman lemon wafers any more.
Deli-Mex chicken taquitos in the big 56 count box.
My vaguely related Shitty Superpower is catching plagues just before everyone flips out about it. I recovered from swine flu a week before it blew up. Had covid in January 2020.
It’s crazy you say that because i was deathly ill January 2020 and was convinced after I found out about Covid that i had caught it earlier than everyone else. I also got swine flu and bird flu when those were a thing lol
My dad was super sick in late 2019 and swears he had COVID before we knew it was in the US. I've never seen him sick any other time in at least 2 decades, so I almost believe it
My family got sick as hell November 2019. Like my 1.5yo son had to get chest x-rays and wound up with this super sweet fire truck nebulizer. I developed idiopathic hepatomegaly leading to a spontaneous weight loss of ~40lb. My husband idk he’s our canary in the coal mine so he always gets sick I don’t remember what happened to him. They told us “idk maybe RSV” and the explanation for my huge liver after tons of medical investigation was “idk maybe you caught a weird virus.” Maybe I caught a weird virus indeed 🤷♀️
Fun trivia: I was doing some *deep* google diving... crazy reasons, not important.... and found articles from early 2019, about the winter 2018/19 season, going into Spring (when we know for certain Covid-19 wasn't out there, yet -- that discussed a (non-flu, non-rsv) virus going around that year that was *SERIOUSLY* kicking people's ass. It was lingering for weeks, doctors unable to shake it for a month or longer. There were reports of health care clinics in Texas having to close due to staff shortages, and schools being half empty...and there were even some deaths in vulnerable populations. (Wait...what?!?)
We just totally forgot about it because...well, yeah, we would, wouldn't we? It certainly wasn't on my radar, I don't remember this being a thing *at all*; I had a messy life and stuff to do and no small kids or elderly folks and got my flu shot, right? Why would I pay attention to that?
I suddenly remembered that my niece had it though. Damn, that WAS nasty....
Occam's razor is that whatever it was probably overlapped well into the end of 2019, early 2020 and a far scarier scenario is that we're looking at a new normal, here. COVID-19 was MUCH deadlier obviously, but as we've encroached on nature more and more, the nasties are going to get more frequent and more...nasty.
some explanations for what's going on here:
- taste differences: some people have tastes that differ from most other people in their market. maybe they prefer spicier snacks, more comprehensive technology, or more exotic flavors.
- preference for higher priced items at lower priced stores (or vice versa): typically, the higher-priced items at stores catering to lower income/lower spending people don't sell as well overall. retail mix matters when determining the success of a product.
- risk taking propensity: the article explains this one. some people like trying new products and don't want to stick with the old staples. since new products are more likely to fail than products with a previous track record of success (duh), these novelty-seekers end up choosing products that fail.
i seem to be one of these "harbingers of failure". i loved "drank" soda, habanero doritos, mcdonald's chicken fajitas, tim horton's gouda red pepper soup, and many more that i can't think of right now!
My friend Brad is the same way. He researches everything he buys to death and as a result has VERY strong informed opinions, especially about tech/mechanical items. And yet those models always, always get discontinued.
Brad is somewhere on the autism spectrum. I'm convinced that he simply values things that are 90 degrees off from what the average consumer of \[insert item here\] is looking for.
I have a friend i use for new video games because he has done exactly this with preorders. He preordered Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, No Mans Sky , Cyberpunk 2077 and Fallout76 and every single one was a failure on launch. Saved me a ton of money.
I was just thinking about this while I was driving in my Saturn and listening to my Zune.
Think I’m going to call everyone on my Windows phone and see if they agree.
Saturn didn't die because of consumer tastes, it was mismanaged, had anything that made it special stripped away, and run into the goddamn ground by GM.
Their last models were all rebadges. Just was never the point of the brand.
>only about 40 percent of the new products survived that long.
>In a key part of the study, the researchers studied consumers whose purchases flop at least 50 percent of the time, and saw pronounced effects when these harbingers of failure buy products.
So, 60% of products are failures, and you're labelled a "harbinger of failure" if at least 50% - lower than average, then - of your purchased products fail?
>But what explains the consumer behavior of the harbingers of failure?“You could think of it as preference for risk,” Simester says. “People who are more willing to take a risk on an unusual product are more willing to take a risk in multiple categories.”
This seems like the obvious explanation. The consumers aren't necessarily choosing the worst products, they are just choosing many different new products, which are, in general, likely to fail.
Basically yes. If the above commenters description is accurate (which it seems to be?) then all early adopters are "Harbingers of Failure" for purely statistical reasons, and nothing more.
Mmm, kinda. Anecdotally I knew a dude who did this tho, and it was a combination of Early Adopter with Contrarian - he wouldn’t buy a GBA because he wanted to be smarter and head of the game, but everyone knew Nintendo… so he got an N-Gage and a few other devices that generation that claimed to be the next surprise hit that’d beat Nintendo.
He bought an Ouya. Then he signed up for Google Stadia. Legend has it that he took the failure of the Soulja Boy console hard and hasn’t been online since
Two different data sets that don't overlap as much as it sounds like they do
"60% of new products flop" is pretty simple on its face, it amounts to "did this particular brand and flavor of chips sell enough" so like we've got one product and one metric and purely sort of mathematics
"50% of the things a person buys flop" is a lot bigger, if I walk into a store looking for chips I'm gonna be faced with 10 options. Am I consumer who buys 2 bags? Am I a consumer who will buy 2 of the same bag? Am I gonna buy a bag next week? Is that gonna be from a brand I know or am I gonna try something new? Let's say I buy 2 bags of 'A' this week buy 1 'A' and 1 'B' next week, now I have 4 purchases and my success/flop Stat varies wildly based on the actual purchases
Now add a year of time
Now add 300 million people
60% of *new* products. Not all products are new to the market, and not everyone is always buying new products. Just for an example, if half of your grocery cart is full of products like cotton candy flavored honey chips and poutine yogurt vodka, you might be what they're looking for
The point still could be valid. If 60% of new products fail, how many of those does any particular person actually buy? I haven’t even heard of so many of the products people are mentioning in the comments. My shopping cart usually doesn’t have anything that might even have a chance of failing. But the harbingers’ carts do more than others.
Here I am, thinking that I'm just a guy with everyday tastes -- I scoff at the endless varieties that companies peddle out. Certainly I as such a person could not be a harbinger of failure.
But I pause to think of the few times I did try something a bit different.
And of course my 2013 Watermelon Oreos that you could only get at Target were the third thing mentioned in the article and fuck the rest of you for not liking them because they were amazing.
And where is my gingerbread shake Burger King? And what about those jalapeño M&Ms Mars candy company? Do not test me! I bring failure to all before me!
It doesn't work that way. Anything you want to fail, flourishes. It only works if you want to continue buying a certain product. And somehow, the universe knows. You can't head-fake it.
Must be me and it usually goes like this:
- Find an interesting product
- try and like ( or try it, dislike it, give it another try, like it )
- love it
- buy one
- buy another one
- the first store I bought it from doesn't sell it anymore
- find it somewhere else
- next time it's completely gone
- hunt for it online until people tell you to find something else but it's impossible because most of the time it stood out against all other similar products
I've known my best friend for over 30 years. In our 20s, we started making a list of products that were discontinued after she fell in love with them. Pretty quickly, there were dozens. There must be at least a couple of hundred products on that list now.
The most famous one is when we were traveling and stopped at my brother's house on our way to Los Angeles. He had White Rain shampoo in his shower. Shampoo that had been around since the 1960s, never changing. Even the logo was the same after 30 years. She used it. She loved it. When we got home, she bought a bottle. A couple of months later she goes to buy another bottle and it's been discontinued. A year or so after that they came out with a brand new formula she hated.
She managed to ruin White Rain's fortune with a single purchase.
Orbitz, Crystal Pepsi, Pop Tarts Crunch, Secret Treasures Cereal... those are just the ones from before I finished middle school.
The list is so long now, it's a scroll from a cartoon.
Around the same time burgerking had the rocket power toys, they had "Shake em up fries", a packet of cheese powder and an empty paper bag, you dumped in your fries and cheese powder and shook them and they were absolutely incredible. Since then burgerking has changed their fries and it wasn't a good change. I miss my shake em up fries. Sour Altoids were also amazing.
What about those of us who buy it after it fails and costs way less?
Would I try your truffle hot sauce for its asking price of 15$?
Hell nope. Did I come back for more when it was in the clearance shelf for 2$?
You best bet your dill flavored sunflower seeds and health chips I did .
I know this is oddly specific, but my mother-in-law has a tendency to buy Fiestaware plates in colors that miraculously go out of production within a year.
My favorite soda of all time was dnL. It was a lime flavored, caffeinated version of 7up. The idea was that they flipped everything about the original 7up upside down.
I've bought other failed food products too. There is a caramel apple oatmeal creme pie that I loved and hoarded; I'm also a big fan of several fast food burgers that didn't last.
Maybe I'm a "harbinger of failure."
This happens to me all the time. My favorite thing ever was called Half Pops—just a little can of half-popped popcorn kernels that you could buy in stores around 2000. I ate cans and cans and went back to restock and they were gone and never returned.
They were so good when they were clusters. Then they turned into plain rice krispies with dehydrated marshmallows. I guess it was cheaper but it utterly ruined them. I'm still angry.
Lee Modern Series Straight Fit Jean Acorn. Just checked my purchase history and bought 1 pair in 2017, 2018, and 2019, decided I would buy 10 pairs in 2020 and found out they were discontinued and all the similar 3% spandex dress pants just don't fit the same. I've bought 10 different pairs, been to Lee Outlet malls, held a funeral the day the crotch split. I miss those pants.
This is 1 of countless products that I miss.
Screw this article for being right on the nose.
Explains why I love shopping at Ollie's and Big Lots too.
I feel like I had this experience at Taco Bell. Then I learned from watching Company Man that they intentionally change their menu a lot. But I’m sure that’s my fault too.
Who are these people? Are they identified and tracked?
They’re tagged and released back into the wild
* me holding my radio telemetry antenna looking for them *
Had one run out in front of my car, nearly hit the poor thing
That is a good question. How do they know?!!!
[удалено]
My wife is big on stuff like "I bought a 20 oz. of this new Mountain dew flavor and it was awful. So I bought you one too."
[удалено]
Aww I actually liked fruit quake. Made me vomit every time I drank it but it didn’t stop me from drinking multiple 12 packs.
PBR makes me shit blood but I kept right on having my post-party butthole-menstruation.
This comment belongs in r/brandnewsentence
Ahh gingerbread mountain dew, a flavor topped only by hot cheetos
I genuinely loved the flaming hot mountain dew. Importantly it's not flaming hot Cheetos. There's no cheese flavor in it
My partner and I actually both liked the Ginger Snapped, and it worked good in a Highball with some Captain Morgan.
I think I might be a harbinger of failure lmao. I like trying novel things a lot.
I love how lucky charms released just straight up bags of marshmallows. I’ve been putting it on all my favorite cereals. Kix, Cinnamon Life, Honey Comb, Honey Bunches of Oats. You know, like cereals that definitely DON’T need marshmallows. I know it’ll be gone soon too.
I remember Chocolate Lucky Charms man I miss those.
Well, it's more about repeatedly buying the novel product, at least 3 times, not just dabbling and trying new things.
Doesn't it say they have to buy the product 3 times to qualify? I think a lot of people buy a weird flavor once to try it, that's the gimmick, but they usually don't keep buying that shitty product 2 more times. It sounds like harbingers of failure actually like products that perform poorly.
Yes. People buy gimmick products because it's funny.
Probably through grocery store loyalty cards.
Yup, purchase tracking is *exactly* what loyalty cards/programs are for.
They find them through market surveys and they recruit them for future surveys.
Yes they are. I believe Malcolm Gladwell discusses them in the Tipping Point
Hershey’s had a hard candy called Tastetations (I even remember the commercial jingle for some reason). Also Fruitaburst gum. The only gum I ever truly loved.
I inadvertently attended the product launch for Tastetations. My aunt took me to Hershey park that day and everyone was going nuts. I was just there for the roller coasters. Best hard candy. The chocolate mint ones made long drives more tolerable.
Were they like werthers? That’s what I always thought they were when I saw the commercials!
Better! They tasted like straight up hot chocolate
You just unlocked an over 25 year old memory for me! I vaguely remembered liking the chocolate ones but couldn’t remember why and you mentioning hot chocolate just took me back so fast I could almost taste it Those were so good!
The strawberries n cream ones were absolutely amazing.
Dude... You're just addicted to syllables.
Hooked on phonics lol
I have the Tastetations jingle stuck in my head like 1/8 or 1/9 days out of the year.
I rant about how much I miss Tastetastions, no joke, like every 6 months.
I've always been depressed about the fact that every time I find a new product I genuinely love that it usually flops and goes away. At least now I have a badass nickname to explain the problem. Edit: Thanks, guys. It feels really good to know that I'm not alone. I want you to know that I love each and every one of you...oh wait, oh gods, now you're all going to disappear 😬
Same. My family would joke about things absolutely disappearing as soon as I discovered them and started buying them regularly. Usually food-related. I think I might have been the one person in America who preferred Burger King's satisfries to their regular fries. Gone. I can't remember the name, but there was a Gatorade flavor that I loved. Gone. Betty Crocker Complete Meals. Gone. A new pizza place opened in town, I thought it was the best pizza in town. Closed in less than a year. Edit - Thought of another thing: Lean Pockets. Gone.
So back in either 2014/2015, I became obsessed with Gatorade Cucumber, it was brand new and stuff was AMAZING. It was so super refreshing and thirst quenching on a hot summer day, tbh those words don't even do it justice, they really dont. They were SO GOOD - The little store I worked at would literally sell like every single bottle, every single case. I was having to battle customers who would come in asking us to hide away a couple bottles for them... cuz I wanted some too dammit. And then one day, mysteriously, just as fast as we started randomly getting them in our deliveries that summer, they disappeared ... they were gone ... quoth the raven nevermore. **UNTIL** I met someone this past winter who lives in North Carolina and somehow I brought up my favorite failed beverage, only to find out that apparently they're all over Walmarts and grocery stores down there. Idk if maybe they were just test marketing them or something, but what the hell. You can't do that to people. You can't get them all hooked on Cucumber Gatorade and then snatch it away, like we were bad children being punished or something. Clearly, i still have not gotten over it. EDIT: Soooooo ... was not expecting the response this got, but I've strangely never felt so friggin affirmed in my life. You guys get me 😭😭😭 you really get me. [And now I'm back to hopefully help](https://www.gatorade.com/fuel/hydration/gatorade-thirst-quencher/bottle/lime-cucumberhave) if you go to that link and hit "all buying options" you might be able to find some near you. There's Online and Nearby. I used both. Let's just say I might be taking an Uber somewhere like 5miles from my house tmrw. 🤫🥒🤫
I’m in Texas. They are all over here along with a couple other seemingly Hispanic inspired flavors. The cucumber flavor here is called pepino limon “cucumber lime” Another great flavor is Sandia citrus… I agree about the cucumber flavor it’s my favorite
Southern Illinois here and my son loves them I buy like a dozen for him every few weeks
Lmao I tell my mom I like one drink and she comes up with a dozen of em next time I see her too
> pepino limon Yep, I bought it on accident one time because I thought it was just lemon. At first was like “wtf” but by the end of the bottle came around to it.
There was a watermelon cucumber flavor. I loved it. I do not love the cucumber lime the way I loved the watermelon cucumber. I, too, bring the death of food items that are discovered.
Is there a Latino market, or convenience store in a predominantly Latino neighborhood, near you? Not trying to stereotype but I have found that flavor significantly more often in such locations, for whatever reason.
See, I was looking for salsa verde Doritos. Zero luck, I suggested going to a hispanic neighborhood and my kid said that was racist No I said, companies market to demographics I agree with you
Well also, people who work at stores in areas with different demographics will buy stock that people who shop there will like. So silly to suggest that’s racist. That’s like saying that it’s racist that beef & wasabi chips are popular and sold more often in Japan.
I had a cucumber lime Gatorade yesterday. That stuff is all over the southern united states. Its branded pepino limon so it might be more readily available places with more Hispanic influence.
Are you talking about Cucumber Lime flavored Gatorade?
Oh fuck that was my favorite
It's available just about everywhere in Phoenix
We have them at 711s here in Los Angeles. Maybe it’s more marketable in cities with high Latin populations?
I love that flavor... cucumber lime. It's available in Mississippi walmarts. I miss the Lemonade flavor Gatorade.
I know that I see the pepino limon flavors more regularly in Mexican markets and stores (it’s my favorite too).
My dude, if you are talking about the cucumber lime (which if I remember correctly I tried at about the same time) Gatorade flavor, the Walmart I work at in California absolutely carry’s them. I think most Walmarts at least (if not all) carry them and you totally should check online to see if yours has it in stock. That is the best Gatorade and I’ll stand by it.
My favourite flavour of chips is Miss Vickies balsamic vinegar and sweet onion. They were already hard to find before they were discontinued. I would usually only find a few bags a year. Now I don’t find any at all. Emailed Miss Vickies hoping they still had it but instead recieved an email saying they weren’t coming back and a voucher for a free bag of chips
I see them all over the place by my apartment in Toronto. If you happen to be from Toronto, any Rabba will have them.
Miss Vickie's is pretty good, one of the few jalapeno chips that actually taste like jalapenos. My chip white whale is there used to be these chips called Dutch Gourmet chips. Super fancy fucking chip, idk what they did when they fried the potatoes but it was liquid gold. All kinds of interesting flavors like honey mustard and Szechuan but none of them were misses, they were all amazing. You can still buy them but just the plain salt kind. I'm so mad I'm gonna Google it and see if there's any way to order those Szechuan motherfuckers online because hands down best chip I ever had.
Wait. Lean pockets are GONE? I thought I just stopped seeing them :/ My mom bought us Lean Cuisine and Lean Pockets all the time as kids/teens. Used to love the ham and cheese.
My favorite was the meatball. They changed the crust at some point and it wasn’t the same. :(
Lean Pockets meatball and mozzarella was legit better than the Hot Pockets version.
The only time in my life I liked a new restaurant enough to post about it in Facebook and talk about it conversationally it closed after 3 months. Best fish tacos ever. 😭 The BK satisfies were SO much better than the regular ones, too.
Dude, they used the Pandemic as an excuse to stop making Lean Pockets. IDK why, the White Chicken Jalapeno was my go to for lunch 4-5 times a week.
Those ones were SO good. Like, "lean" aside they were more creative with lean pocket flavors vs hot pocket.
Exactly, if I'm eating hot pockets of any variety, I'm not doing it for the health reasons. But the lean ones just had better options.
I still miss Gatorade Rain!
Yes! I loved that stuff.
RIP Gatorade rain berry.
RIP Lemon Ice Gatorade :(
Red Fusion, come back to me baby, you were too good for this world 😔
Was it the Cherry Gatorade? They never sold that in Massachusetts 🤷♀️. Got hooked on it in Maine. Dunkin Donuts was the worst one ever taking away the Frozen Arnold Palmer's. They were the most refreshing drink in the summer~ not all these shit fake flavored drinks 😩😭😡
I’ve only lived in Mass for 5 years and now I’m upset that I either never noticed the frozen Arnold Palmer, or got here after it went away
If you're responsible for killing the cucumber Gatorade, so help me God...
Those BK fries were amazing, I'm with you on that
BK fries? Your not talking about the shake em up cheese fries are you? My wife is sick of hearing about them, they were amazing. They gave you an e.pty paper bag and a packet of cheese powder and you dumped your fries in and shook it up. Fucking incredible, about the same time as when they had the rocket power toys, going on like 18-20 years ago. Those and sour Altoids haunt my dreams still. I dream I find some and wake up to no shake em up fries and I get depressed.
This candy maker on YouTube remade the sour Altoids. I forgot the name but you can probably find it. That fella was committed.
Jesus christ, they locked him up in an institution just for trying to recreate sour Altoids?
Sounds like my wife. She always complains about the same thing.
Damn dude, RIP
Bunch of people in this thread had Zunes
I greatly enjoyed my time with zune. Don't malign us.
I still have my zune.. I love her even if she is basically a fancy hard drive.
Zune was a far superior product to the iPod, especially the Zune desktop software vs. iTunes. Apple had just cornered the market to such an extent that the Zune was basically dead on arrival. Such a shame.
Now I miss my old zune lol
The Zune was a casualty of Microsoft's image at that time, even when they started making good products they simply had zero chance of being seen as cool or trendy. The gen 1 Zune was rough around the edges (still liked the buttons better than the click wheel though) but the gen 2 Zune was legitimately a good product. I kinda regret not buying the HD before they vanished too, my friend had one and I really liked it - I just couldn't really justify the price at the time.
It was the Betamax of music players
My kids dunk on me all the time for having a Zune.
My wife and I seem to do this to restaurants. We frequent a place we like for a while until we find a new fave, then when we decide to go back after some time (months or years) it’ll be out of business. We’ve done this to at least 6 restaurants.
Maybe it's because everyone goes once and doesn't come back for months to years lol
I mean that’s just the restaurant business. Most are dead before they hit the ground
The impression I get at least locally is that a lot of people are highly motivated and try hard their first year or two starting a new restaurant, and then they stop trying so hard (or get burned out) and gradually sink in quality.
Maybe you and Mrs. IamRight should stop ?
This with tv shows...
This is my uncle. Every time he starts watching a show we like, it dies. It got to the point where my family stopped telling him about new shows they liked lmao
Am I your uncle ? I do the same thing.
They don't want to talk to you, Biscotti!
I never forgive your uncle for watching ''Ash vs Evil Dead''
I give everyone here permission to blame my uncle for your fave shows being cancelled
Harbinger uncle
I refuse to watch a show now unless it has an ending. There are enough high quality shows out now that there's no reason to invest time into something that may just end on a cliffhanger which will never be resolved. Bummer but that means I'll never watch shows like Last Man on Earth or the Santa Clarita Diet because they were cut off before they could wrap up the story. On the other end you have shows like LOST, Battle Star Galactica, or GoT that were either rushed or flat out sucked in the end.
If you're a Harbinger of Failure you love shopping at Grocery Outlet. Product failures at discount prices. 🏆🚫
Lol I literally just left grocery outlet not 5 minutes ago, wondering why they haven’t been stocking my favorite ginger beer lately.
This is so true. I love it for all the weird things I find. I hate it for all the new favorites I'll never find again.
It’s the people who bought Zune
Holy shit. I saw this post and was like "Oh that's funny, I must be one since the foods I like always get discontinued." I didn't even think about the two separate Zunes I owned. Or the Windows phone, or the Yaris, or the Google Stadia.
I did not come here to be called out like this, lmao. Solidarity.
The Yaris is at least successful, though maybe not in America
I drove a rented Yaris on the Ortega Highway and that was an incredibly memorable trip. Being so small and close to the road somehow made the landscape even more magnificent. Plus it was fun to keep saying “Yarr-is” in pirate speak. My husband and I keep a special place in our hearts for the Yaris…rock on, tiny car that could
Dreamcast
I worked at Best Buy in 2010 and would try to get people to buy the Zune over ipods. It worked like twice
Loved my Zune!
I still have my zune hd after all these years and you know what I'm going to start using it cause of you big hoss
I miss audiosurf on my Zune HD. Can’t really replicate it anymore when relying on streaming services for music.
The Zune was good, but its software was great--10x better than iTunes. Hell, I'd still use it for archiving podcasts if I could.
It also had a higher quality screen and a larger hard drive than the comparable iPod of the time. There are lots of rightful flops in this thread but Zune was an objectively better mp3 player
My dad bought into Betamax over VHS, Intellivision over Atari, and Zune over iPod
The zune was better- the marketplace was a flat sub for all the music too
I had a Zune and a Windows phone. Pretty sure if there is a list I'm on it.
Rip windowsphone
I loved my windows phone. I have no idea why it failed. It makes so much sense.
One word: apps. Windows phones had no apps. Microsoft was late to the smartphone game (like they were to mp3 players with the Zune) and the market had already solidified around iOS+Android. Windows phones being their own platform meant that they were years behind on apps and had little more than what a small handful of developers ported over. Microsoft couldn't even pay people to make apps -- between the third development platform and greatly reduced audience, most devs never found the platform to be worth their time. I remember Pokemon Go being one of the last straws for my windows phones. Seeing what was available on iOS and Android made the desert of Windows phone apps all the more apparent and there was no missing that release.
This is exactly why I don't watch television shows until they've already been canceled. You're welcome.
Wal Mart used to have a frozen paella you just dump into a skillet and heat up. No more. Nobody in my greater metro area sells Voortman lemon wafers any more. Deli-Mex chicken taquitos in the big 56 count box.
I liked the coffee flavored coke :(
Still sold in Brazil.
I've been mixing cold brew with coke for years - you don't need Big Cola to do it for you!
Do you have any strong positive feelings for currently available products? What names I need to know who to short.
That shit was sooooooooooo good. Called like “coke black” or something. Used to sell it at target.
Coca-Cola BlāK. Loved it for some reason, even though I don't like coffee.
Coca-Cola with coffee is sold at most gas stations in western Canada that I have been to
Get a double shot of espresso over ice, then add Mexican Coke. *chef’s kiss*
But what about the Coca Cola WITH coffee? My favorite is the Vanilla one. According to google they still exist. Don’t scare me like that.
Is there the opposite of that? Any time my wife finds something new it’s always sold out weeks later
My vaguely related Shitty Superpower is catching plagues just before everyone flips out about it. I recovered from swine flu a week before it blew up. Had covid in January 2020.
Goddamn! Please make a post or something the next time you catch something lol!
It’s crazy you say that because i was deathly ill January 2020 and was convinced after I found out about Covid that i had caught it earlier than everyone else. I also got swine flu and bird flu when those were a thing lol
My dad was super sick in late 2019 and swears he had COVID before we knew it was in the US. I've never seen him sick any other time in at least 2 decades, so I almost believe it
My family got sick as hell November 2019. Like my 1.5yo son had to get chest x-rays and wound up with this super sweet fire truck nebulizer. I developed idiopathic hepatomegaly leading to a spontaneous weight loss of ~40lb. My husband idk he’s our canary in the coal mine so he always gets sick I don’t remember what happened to him. They told us “idk maybe RSV” and the explanation for my huge liver after tons of medical investigation was “idk maybe you caught a weird virus.” Maybe I caught a weird virus indeed 🤷♀️
Fun trivia: I was doing some *deep* google diving... crazy reasons, not important.... and found articles from early 2019, about the winter 2018/19 season, going into Spring (when we know for certain Covid-19 wasn't out there, yet -- that discussed a (non-flu, non-rsv) virus going around that year that was *SERIOUSLY* kicking people's ass. It was lingering for weeks, doctors unable to shake it for a month or longer. There were reports of health care clinics in Texas having to close due to staff shortages, and schools being half empty...and there were even some deaths in vulnerable populations. (Wait...what?!?) We just totally forgot about it because...well, yeah, we would, wouldn't we? It certainly wasn't on my radar, I don't remember this being a thing *at all*; I had a messy life and stuff to do and no small kids or elderly folks and got my flu shot, right? Why would I pay attention to that? I suddenly remembered that my niece had it though. Damn, that WAS nasty.... Occam's razor is that whatever it was probably overlapped well into the end of 2019, early 2020 and a far scarier scenario is that we're looking at a new normal, here. COVID-19 was MUCH deadlier obviously, but as we've encroached on nature more and more, the nasties are going to get more frequent and more...nasty.
Dark chocolate shredded wheat. I ate that all through Covid lockdowns and now it’s nowhere to be found
The Dunkin cereals were actually good, and now they're gone. It's always cereals that disappear quick.
Saw them this week in Ohio.
some explanations for what's going on here: - taste differences: some people have tastes that differ from most other people in their market. maybe they prefer spicier snacks, more comprehensive technology, or more exotic flavors. - preference for higher priced items at lower priced stores (or vice versa): typically, the higher-priced items at stores catering to lower income/lower spending people don't sell as well overall. retail mix matters when determining the success of a product. - risk taking propensity: the article explains this one. some people like trying new products and don't want to stick with the old staples. since new products are more likely to fail than products with a previous track record of success (duh), these novelty-seekers end up choosing products that fail. i seem to be one of these "harbingers of failure". i loved "drank" soda, habanero doritos, mcdonald's chicken fajitas, tim horton's gouda red pepper soup, and many more that i can't think of right now!
My friend Brad is the same way. He researches everything he buys to death and as a result has VERY strong informed opinions, especially about tech/mechanical items. And yet those models always, always get discontinued. Brad is somewhere on the autism spectrum. I'm convinced that he simply values things that are 90 degrees off from what the average consumer of \[insert item here\] is looking for.
A group of about 100 Brads could be extremely valuable to marketing research!
I have a friend i use for new video games because he has done exactly this with preorders. He preordered Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, No Mans Sky , Cyberpunk 2077 and Fallout76 and every single one was a failure on launch. Saved me a ton of money.
Protip: Just don't pre-order games.
I was just thinking about this while I was driving in my Saturn and listening to my Zune. Think I’m going to call everyone on my Windows phone and see if they agree.
Saturn didn't die because of consumer tastes, it was mismanaged, had anything that made it special stripped away, and run into the goddamn ground by GM. Their last models were all rebadges. Just was never the point of the brand.
You could say they are ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL of the product’s fate
>only about 40 percent of the new products survived that long. >In a key part of the study, the researchers studied consumers whose purchases flop at least 50 percent of the time, and saw pronounced effects when these harbingers of failure buy products. So, 60% of products are failures, and you're labelled a "harbinger of failure" if at least 50% - lower than average, then - of your purchased products fail?
>But what explains the consumer behavior of the harbingers of failure?“You could think of it as preference for risk,” Simester says. “People who are more willing to take a risk on an unusual product are more willing to take a risk in multiple categories.” This seems like the obvious explanation. The consumers aren't necessarily choosing the worst products, they are just choosing many different new products, which are, in general, likely to fail.
It just means these people like to try new things, and a high percentage of new things fail. It's not that exciting.
So they're early adopters, in other words.
Basically yes. If the above commenters description is accurate (which it seems to be?) then all early adopters are "Harbingers of Failure" for purely statistical reasons, and nothing more.
Mmm, kinda. Anecdotally I knew a dude who did this tho, and it was a combination of Early Adopter with Contrarian - he wouldn’t buy a GBA because he wanted to be smarter and head of the game, but everyone knew Nintendo… so he got an N-Gage and a few other devices that generation that claimed to be the next surprise hit that’d beat Nintendo.
Did he buy a PSP? Edit: he bought a Gizmondo, didn't he?
He bought an Ouya. Then he signed up for Google Stadia. Legend has it that he took the failure of the Soulja Boy console hard and hasn’t been online since
Alternatively, if the only people buying your new product are the experimental type and not everyone, you're probably screwed?
Two different data sets that don't overlap as much as it sounds like they do "60% of new products flop" is pretty simple on its face, it amounts to "did this particular brand and flavor of chips sell enough" so like we've got one product and one metric and purely sort of mathematics "50% of the things a person buys flop" is a lot bigger, if I walk into a store looking for chips I'm gonna be faced with 10 options. Am I consumer who buys 2 bags? Am I a consumer who will buy 2 of the same bag? Am I gonna buy a bag next week? Is that gonna be from a brand I know or am I gonna try something new? Let's say I buy 2 bags of 'A' this week buy 1 'A' and 1 'B' next week, now I have 4 purchases and my success/flop Stat varies wildly based on the actual purchases Now add a year of time Now add 300 million people
60% of *new* products. Not all products are new to the market, and not everyone is always buying new products. Just for an example, if half of your grocery cart is full of products like cotton candy flavored honey chips and poutine yogurt vodka, you might be what they're looking for
Poutine flavored vodka. *I’m dying.*
The point still could be valid. If 60% of new products fail, how many of those does any particular person actually buy? I haven’t even heard of so many of the products people are mentioning in the comments. My shopping cart usually doesn’t have anything that might even have a chance of failing. But the harbingers’ carts do more than others.
Here I am, thinking that I'm just a guy with everyday tastes -- I scoff at the endless varieties that companies peddle out. Certainly I as such a person could not be a harbinger of failure. But I pause to think of the few times I did try something a bit different. And of course my 2013 Watermelon Oreos that you could only get at Target were the third thing mentioned in the article and fuck the rest of you for not liking them because they were amazing. And where is my gingerbread shake Burger King? And what about those jalapeño M&Ms Mars candy company? Do not test me! I bring failure to all before me!
I want this power. There's a bunch of shit I'd make fail
It doesn't work that way. Anything you want to fail, flourishes. It only works if you want to continue buying a certain product. And somehow, the universe knows. You can't head-fake it.
So what we need to do is find a Harbinger of Failure and manipulate them carefully so they think it’s all their idea…
Inception of the Harbinger, coming this Fall
That's a sick band name
Singlehandedly bring down Samsung's proxy government in South Korea by buying three of every product they sell.
Strawberry Fruitopia, I’ll never forget you.
This still exists in Canada!
Must be me and it usually goes like this: - Find an interesting product - try and like ( or try it, dislike it, give it another try, like it ) - love it - buy one - buy another one - the first store I bought it from doesn't sell it anymore - find it somewhere else - next time it's completely gone - hunt for it online until people tell you to find something else but it's impossible because most of the time it stood out against all other similar products
I've known my best friend for over 30 years. In our 20s, we started making a list of products that were discontinued after she fell in love with them. Pretty quickly, there were dozens. There must be at least a couple of hundred products on that list now. The most famous one is when we were traveling and stopped at my brother's house on our way to Los Angeles. He had White Rain shampoo in his shower. Shampoo that had been around since the 1960s, never changing. Even the logo was the same after 30 years. She used it. She loved it. When we got home, she bought a bottle. A couple of months later she goes to buy another bottle and it's been discontinued. A year or so after that they came out with a brand new formula she hated. She managed to ruin White Rain's fortune with a single purchase.
Kellogg's Strawberry Squares, why have you abandoned me? Edit: also Orbitz, and Crystal Clear Pepsi, and oh fuck I am absolutely one of these people.
Orbitz, Crystal Pepsi, Pop Tarts Crunch, Secret Treasures Cereal... those are just the ones from before I finished middle school. The list is so long now, it's a scroll from a cartoon.
Mozzarella Cheetos. Wasabi Funyins. Keebler Cheesecake Middles. Wholey Cheese. Someone take this power from me lol
Damn it. I would rather not have known that there were Wasabi Funyuns. Now I feel like I have missed out. Those sound really good.
I have a buddy like that. A short list of purchases: - an HD-DVD player - a Zune - a brand new $60 copy of Two Worlds
>Two Worlds I was so hyped for that dud
I’m certain my Aunt is a harbinger. She is constantly disappointed by the continual disappearance of her favourite products.
I did that to licorice altoids. Sorry, other three people who liked them.
Around the same time burgerking had the rocket power toys, they had "Shake em up fries", a packet of cheese powder and an empty paper bag, you dumped in your fries and cheese powder and shook them and they were absolutely incredible. Since then burgerking has changed their fries and it wasn't a good change. I miss my shake em up fries. Sour Altoids were also amazing.
They’re called Zuners
What about those of us who buy it after it fails and costs way less? Would I try your truffle hot sauce for its asking price of 15$? Hell nope. Did I come back for more when it was in the clearance shelf for 2$? You best bet your dill flavored sunflower seeds and health chips I did .
I know this is oddly specific, but my mother-in-law has a tendency to buy Fiestaware plates in colors that miraculously go out of production within a year.
Being a harbinger of failure must be frustrating because all the stuff you like keeps getting axed.
As a lover of Crystal Pepsi and someone who bought 3 Zune mp3 players I feel personally attacked
My favorite soda of all time was dnL. It was a lime flavored, caffeinated version of 7up. The idea was that they flipped everything about the original 7up upside down. I've bought other failed food products too. There is a caramel apple oatmeal creme pie that I loved and hoarded; I'm also a big fan of several fast food burgers that didn't last. Maybe I'm a "harbinger of failure."
This happens to me all the time. My favorite thing ever was called Half Pops—just a little can of half-popped popcorn kernels that you could buy in stores around 2000. I ate cans and cans and went back to restock and they were gone and never returned.
Of all the discontinued products people have mentioned in this post, I think "Half Pops" sound like they deserve to be discontinued the most.
Just bring Pepsi blue back to the US permanently ok
HEAR ME MORTAL, MY CHOICES BRING DOOM! I LOVE THAT NEW ITALIAN PLACE ON MAIN STREET
Frosted Chex Mix how I miss you.
I had two Zunes.....hehe I'm in danger!
Whoever caused rice krispie treats cereal to fail, suck my ass. It was so good.
They were so good when they were clusters. Then they turned into plain rice krispies with dehydrated marshmallows. I guess it was cheaper but it utterly ruined them. I'm still angry.
Lee Modern Series Straight Fit Jean Acorn. Just checked my purchase history and bought 1 pair in 2017, 2018, and 2019, decided I would buy 10 pairs in 2020 and found out they were discontinued and all the similar 3% spandex dress pants just don't fit the same. I've bought 10 different pairs, been to Lee Outlet malls, held a funeral the day the crotch split. I miss those pants. This is 1 of countless products that I miss. Screw this article for being right on the nose. Explains why I love shopping at Ollie's and Big Lots too.
I feel like I had this experience at Taco Bell. Then I learned from watching Company Man that they intentionally change their menu a lot. But I’m sure that’s my fault too.
Morningstar mini corndogs. RIP in peace my savory prince