Product Fails- Orbitz Soda 1996- 1997

The product I chose was Orbitz Soda. I remember being about five years old and seeing this new drink all of my older cousins where drinking! It looked like a lava lamp and had the coolest little things floating inside of them, they even had different color ones. But, what I do remember most is how disappointed they where when they tried these cool looking drinks.
This drink hit the shelves in 1996 and within only a year it was gone! Could it really be that horrible?! Yes! Many consumers compared this drink to cough syrup.
This drink had been marketed as a drink you could eat and drink, the little balls in the drink just floated around in the bottle. It did bring some buyers who bought the drink in bulk because since it was not carbonated it could be stored for long periods of time.
I believed that this product failed because it was so incredibly different! People like products they know and if they see something different that they don't find use to it I believe it will fail. For example, this drink had a different texture and the consumer market was not ready for a "chewable" drink. Unfortunately, other than the drink not being good itself the chewy balls inside of it weren't incredibly appetizing either.
To start off perception ruined their product, the design and marketing was a lot better than what the drink had to offer. Most people who drank this drink thought it was disgusting, it was related to so many different unfortunate tastes that the consumer just did not want the drink again. Unfortunately for the company bad news gets around faster than good news. When a consumer tastes something, experiences anything negative they have the urge to just make sure the word gets around so that other people don't have to deal with what they did, and thats what happened with this product. The word spread incredibly fast and unfortunately it wasn't to this products favor.
When you see the way this bottle is designed is targeted to children, children are the perfect target audience for quirky things with colors, and while it worked and got their attention what the company forgot was that kids aren't the boss. Parents run everything in kids lives, when parents saw that this drink was completely unhealthy and the definition of artificial and they didn't have knowledge on what was in the drink they put a halt on their children drinking these drinks.
When Parents don't know what is in a product or how much artificial products they want their children drinking it causes confusion and as a consumer when I am confused about a product I make sure to stray from that product, which I believe was their biggest downfall, confusing their consumers caused them to turn a product with potential to a product fail. Fortunately for the company their product can still be bought on Ebay.