---
title: "Ten 'Sins' Behind Unsuccessful New Products"
description: "For FMCG companies, developing new products is increasingly important due to diverse consumer demands. However, many new products fail to achieve expected success, primarily due to ten key mistakes, such as misalignment with consumer needs, insufficient analysis of target consumers, and lack of brand awareness."
author: "刘杰"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2015-01-14"
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# Ten 'Sins' Behind Unsuccessful New Products

> For FMCG companies, developing new products is increasingly important due to diverse consumer demands. However, many new products fail to achieve expected success, primarily due to ten key mistakes, such as misalignment with consumer needs, insufficient analysis of target consumers, and lack of brand awareness.

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For FMCG companies, the development of new products has become increasingly important due to the growing richness and diversity of consumer demands. In actual marketing practice, many companies do place new product development in a prominent position, but why do most new products fail to achieve the expected success? Here are the top ten 'sins':

**1. The product's appeal is far from what consumers truly want**
With the development of the market economy and intensified competition, the variety of products in the market has become increasingly abundant, and consumers have a wider range of choices. The only criterion for whether a product is ultimately accepted by consumers is whether it effectively meets a unique need of consumers. Products that fail to truly satisfy a consumer need will eventually be eliminated from the market, no matter how exquisite the packaging or low the price. Similarly, new products must fully satisfy a unique consumer need. However, in practice, many companies do not conduct careful analysis and research on consumer needs before launching new products. They do not take the time to truly listen to the voice of the consumer. Instead, they determine the new product based solely on their own inspiration or ideas. Since the concept and appeal of the new product have not been effectively tested, it often turns out that the new product, which the company believes is excellent, is far from what consumers truly want.

**2. Insufficient analysis of target consumers' behavioral characteristics**
The essence of marketing is to serve a specific group of people. Specifically, any product cannot meet the needs of all consumers simultaneously; it can only satisfy the needs of a portion of consumers. In other words, different products correspond to different target consumers. Different consumers exhibit different consumption characteristics and preferences. However, in actual marketing practice, many companies only have a rough description of the target consumers before launching a new product. In most cases, companies only define the gender and age range of the target consumers, without thoroughly studying their deep consumption characteristics and preferences, such as the daily life trajectory of target consumers, their hobbies, and when, where, and why they consume the product. Without a deep understanding of target consumers, it is naturally difficult for a new product to truly resonate with them.

**3. The new product is far from the company's original positioning**
During the development of a company, it always leaves a relatively fixed image in the minds of consumers, that is, what the company does and what type of products it mainly produces. Considering changes in consumer needs, competitive environment, and the company's current development status, many companies have adopted diversification or transformation strategies. For example, a computer company diversifies into agricultural products, or a candy company transforms into the biscuit industry. When a new product is far from the company's original product category, it naturally surprises consumers. Due to the deep-rooted impression of the company, target consumers naturally doubt the professionalism of the new product, and acceptance is thus discounted.

**4. Insufficient brand awareness**
Many companies launch new products merely to increase sales, without the intention or strong awareness to build a brand. As the Book of Changes says: 'If you aim high, you may only reach the middle; if you aim for the middle, you may only reach the low.' This means that if we set a high goal, we may only achieve a medium level; if we set a medium goal, we may only achieve a low level. If the goal for a new product is merely to increase sales, then the success rate is naturally predictable.

**5. Simple copying and imitation**
This is the most common pitfall in new product development for domestic companies. Many companies do not conduct market research or target consumer studies; they simply see what sells well in the market and launch similar products. The so-called new products differ from successful similar products only in packaging or specifications, and some are even blatant imitations and copies. In actual marketing, the most common phenomenon is that a large number of private enterprises blindly imitate and copy the product categories, packaging, and specifications of well-known foreign companies, and in the actual product promotion, they mainly compete on price through low-price competition. Such so-called new products lack innovation and naturally find it difficult to succeed.

**6. Excessive novelty and eccentricity**
Unlike simple imitation, many companies, in pursuit of 'new,' 'novel,' and 'special' new products, end up launching products that are excessively unconventional. Many new products have packaging that is indeed novel and can instantly catch the consumer's eye, but what exactly is the product? What is the core appeal? Consumers have to look carefully for a long time to understand. Another situation is that many new products excessively pursue novel or professional concept appeals (e.g., many functional foods use scientific language to emphasize product function appeals), but because many concepts are too novel or too professional, target consumers have no idea what the product appeal concept is, and such new products naturally make consumers keep their distance.

**7. Too simplistic promotion methods**
New product development follows a strict scientific process from idea generation to concept formation, product development, launch, and promotion. However, in actual marketing practice, most domestic companies tend to be hasty in new product promotion. Companies with resources may do some concentrated advertising in the early stage of the new product launch, but for most companies with limited resources, they often just gather all distributors for a new product launch meeting, offer stronger promotions than for old products, and consider that as the launch and promotion. At the same time, promotion methods are too simplistic, relying solely on channel promotions or low-price competition, lacking brand promotion activities that deeply communicate with target consumers, thus greatly reducing the success rate of new products.

**8. Unreasonable profit distribution among channel members**
The success of a new product cannot be achieved without the efforts of channel members. The reason is simple: only through the promotion of channel members at all levels can a new product achieve 'face-to-face' contact with consumers. In the actual promotion of new products, due to the non-transparent pricing of new products, it often happens that first-level distributors, in pursuit of excessive profits, intercept the promotional resources that should have been given to lower-level channel members, distributors, and terminals, directly leading to low enthusiasm among terminals to sell the new product, making it difficult for the new product to succeed.

**9. Poor channel service quality**
For channel members, new products mean high profits but also high risks. For distributors, if a new product sells poorly, it means inventory backlog and capital occupation; for terminals, if a new product sells too slowly, there is a risk of product expiration. In reality, many companies turn a blind eye to the inventory backlog of new products among distributors and the near-expiry or expiration of new products at terminals during the actual promotion process. Such a level of channel service naturally cannot help the success of new products.

**10. Lack of persistence**
Every product has its life cycle, and new products are no exception. For new products, it takes a long period of promotion or growth for target consumers to accept them. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the variety of new products in the market is increasingly abundant, and the speed at which companies launch new products is also accelerating. Consumers have become accustomed to the new products visible in the market or the promotional activities of companies, and these factors have invisibly extended the promotion period of products. Therefore, it is unrealistic for any new product to achieve rapid success in the short term. In actual marketing practice, many companies do not persist in promoting new products. If they do not see rapid growth in the short term, they easily give up. Then they hastily launch other new products. Companies continuously develop new products but find it difficult to promote them successfully, falling into a vicious cycle of development-promotion-abandonment-redevelopment, wasting a lot of resources, and making it increasingly difficult for new products to succeed.

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