Nerd Alert: Do Most New Products Really Fail?

Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob challenge the common myth that 80-95% of new products fail. They reveal that while failure rates are significant, they're about half as bad as widely believed, with context and resources playing crucial roles in determining success.

Topics covered:   

• [01:00] "How Common is New Product Failure and When Does It Vary?"
• [02:00] One in four fail within the first year, 40% by year two
• [03:00] Why big, competitive categories have higher failure rates
• [04:00] Growing categories surprisingly show more failures than stable ones
• [05:00] Brand size and trajectory impact new product survival
• [07:00] Why retail creates natural barriers that improve odds 

 





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Resources: 
Victory, K., Nenycz-Thiel, M., Dawes, J. et al. How common is new product failure and when does it vary?. Mark Lett 32, 17–32 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-021-09555-x  
 

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