Consumer Behavior - Product That Failed

Remember this delicious yogurt? Odds are you probably don't.

The same magazine that gives seductive sex tips to young women also decided to give it a go in the dairy business back in 1999. This attempt was a total failure. Their logic to selling this yogurt was "sex sells" and "Cosmo is sex" therefore, "Cosmo can sell anything". Which wasn't the case when this yogurt was discontinued within 18 months of being put on the shelves.

Cosmopolitan seemed to have viewed their target customers behavior all wrong. The consumers attitude of this company has already been made before this launched. Cosmopolitan is a sexy magazine and their customers purchase this magazine because they know their interests. This sexy, seductive image doesn't transfer nicely into the yogurt business and that's where Cosmo went wrong.

Cosmo already has an image that their consumers perceive already and transferring this image to yogurt can make someone go "ew". Even if Cosmo yogurt was made to do some dirty things, it was higher priced than some named brand yogurts on the shelves next to them. Cosmopolitan was trying to go for "sophisticated" and "classy" but these two things don't transfer over to the yogurt business. A majority of the population wants regular, healthy yogurt and that wasn't even a selling point Cosmo made with their consumers.

If Cosmo really wanted to get into selling yogurt, I believe they should have done it differently. They should not have used their whole name (Cosmopolitian) on the packaging because consumers familiarize this name with raunchy sex tips. Instead they might have went for Cos-gurt or something healthier to name this product. Also instead of selling sex with this yogurt they should have created other selling points to their consumers like that it’s healthy and has sexy strawberries in it. or something like that.

Their target market was wrong from the beginning. Their logic was wrong. Thinking their sex driven consumers would purchase this product was completely wrong too.

Although the guys and girls of Cosmo HQ are not laughing about this failure, it is amusing to look back at and wonder "what was Cosmo thinking"?