They usually say ‘Actions speak louder than words’, unfortunately in Gerald Ratner’s case his words rang out a lot louder to customers and share holders alike.  In 1991 speaking at the Institute of Directors, Gerald Ratner explained why he could sell products so cheaply.  In his words he explained that ‘The decanter was so cheap because it was total crap‘. Reports in the media led to the company’s shares losing £500m in value.  Ratner resigned in 1992 and the company became know as Signet.  Gerald Ratner has since setup an online jewellery business.

Not to be outdone by Coca-Cola with their New Coke, Pepsi released a drink in 1992 called Crystal Pepsi. It was a colorless, caffeine-free soft drink, and was released in United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. Unfortunately, much like New Coke, it turned out to be a massive commercial failure.

The taste was much like other Cola drinks, but most other colorless drinks were lemon and lime. Part of the failure came from the insistance by customers that they had added lemon and lime to the drink, when in fact they hadn’t, but this placebo effect caused a lot of confused.

Initial response to Crystal Pepsi was good, but after a huge advertising campaign failed to generate enough profit, the product was dropped. A citrus drink was the launched renamed Crystal by Pepsi, but this suffered the same fate and was short lived.

In the mid 90’s Unilever launched Persil Power in Britain, with the aim of catching up on some of its competitors. The powder contain a substance called manganese “accelerator”, which removed dirt at lower temperatures. Unfortunately their biggest rival Procter & Gamble showed that far from cleaning garments, it actually rotted clothing away. Eventually the product was recalled and the product was abandoned. Most of the law suits which followed were settled out of court.

In reverse order America’s TOP 10 BIGGEST bankruptcies.

10. Delta Air Lines - 2005 - $21.8billion

9. UAL - 2002 - $25.2billion

8. Pacific Gas and Electric - 2001 - $29.8billion

7. Global Crossing - 2002 - $30.2billion

6. Refco - 2005 - $33.3billion

5. Financial Corporation of America - 1988 - $33.9billion

4. Texaco - 1987 - $35.9billion

3. Conseco - 2002 - $61.4billion

2. Enron - 2001 - $63.4billion

1. WorldCom - 2002 - $103.9Billion

In the 1980’s Coca-Cola decided to fight the growing Pepsi brand by creating a new formula for their soft drink. First test in 1985, Coca-Cola believed they were onto a winner. Unfortunately the public thought otherwise and after 3 months and half a million complaints the old Coke returned, renamed as Coke Classic.

Some people argue that this was just a ruse to renew interest in Coke. Coca-Cola of course deny this.

In 2000 America Online and Time Warner merge to create AOL Time Warner. At the time it was thought as a brilliant marriage of the old technology and the new. AOL thought they could exploit Time Warners extensive back catalogue of films and music through its internet distribution. Unfortunately the hoped for cross media failed to happen and the collapse of the dotcom bubble wiped out much of AOL’s value. In 2002 they suffered the biggest ever corporate loss of some $100 billion. Time Warner dropped the AOL prefix a year later.

Bungle.biz is a blog dedicated to exposing the worlds biggest and smallest blunders.  From the biggest losses, the worst ideas and the biggest failures.  This site is dedicated to every wrong in the business world

Have fun and if you find any more blunders or have one of your own, feel free to post it here.