Were you able to intuit these terrible business decisions?

1. In 2007, the US Cartoon Network's advertising for Teen Hunger Force included mysterious objects placed in random locations around the city of Boston. Why did this turn out to be a terrible idea? They looked like bombs.
2. What didn't billionaire Ross Perot buy in 1979? Microsoft.
3. What fatal business mistake did Edwin Drake make in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1858? He failed to patent his oil drill.
4. What did Western Union fail to buy for a mere $100,000 because it lacked 'commercial possibilities' and frankly, looked like a toy? The telephone.
5. What horrible liquid mistake in 1985 caused massive consumer outrage and immediate back-pedalling? Two words that do not belong together: New. Coke.
6. What disastrous business decision was made by a Decca Records exec on New Year's Day in 1961? Not to sign the Beatles.
7. What breaking news story did the San Francisco Chronicle pass on at a mere $500? Watergate.
8. In the 1970s, the WT Grant Company, a US dime-store chain, went under because of issuing too much credit to customers. The company had forced its sales staff to hard-sell credit cards to customers by terrorising them – the sales staff, not the customers. Name one of the company's 'punishments' for not meeting a credit-issuing quota. Getting a pie in the face, being forced to push a peanut across the floor with one's nose, or being made to run through a hotel lobby wearing nothing but a nappy. Grant's deserved to go bankrupt, in our opinion.
9. What did Eastman Kodak develop in 1975, and then fail to market? The digital camera.
10. In 1977, the senior executives at 20th Century Fox film studio wanted to save a measly $20,000 off the salary of a director, one George Lucas by name. What did they give him in return for the $20,000 pay cut? Product merchandising rights to any and all Star Wars films. The price? $3 billion and counting.

What have we learned? In business, a time machine would be really useful.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

05.03.18 Front Page

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