Announce product, .. and then vanish
Ever heard of a company doing a splash for a product, launching the product in the market, and then … vanished ! No longer do you find retailers stocking the product, in fact they deny that it is in the marketing chain.
This is what happened recently to the 7-Up Lite launched in the Indian market. It is available in an attractive green bottle, costs Rs. 2 more than the normal 7-Up (for the 500 ML bottle), and has a pretty decent taste. I am a consumer of the Diet Code / Diet Pepsi bottles, and hence thought that this is a good alternative for the colas. So I bought a few bottles, and then voila .. when I went in for a refill, it was no longer to be found. This was pretty interesting, and somewhat shocking.
The first rule of consumer behaviour is that when you create a demand, then you should have the product in the marketing chain. It beats me as to how the company can launch this product, continue running ads on TV, and yet not have it available in the market. I wonder if anyone has any answers to this ?