This article appears courtesy of The Shelf Potato Blog, by Doug Garnett. The article was originally published on July 1, 2010, by Ben Smith.

“From half baked spud to dud in 2 months is no way to go through a life-cycle son.”

Article: “Death of the Microsoft Kin: A Look at the Evidence”

Article: “Microsoft’s Kin smartphone: No, it kin’t”

If you saw the commercials or talked to a rep in store, you probably couldn’t figure out what problems Kin solved or unmet needs it satisfied. The fact that it was pulled from the market so soon by a company with so deep of pockets leaves only a few conclusions and bigger questions.

How bad were sales – did anybody buy it?

Did Microsoft launch something it knew was bad but needed the flop to validate something? Was it a really expensive live focus group?

Article: “Microsoft Kin Gets a Price Cut…Already”

I always have a problem with companies willingness to make price moves once it is too late. Just 2 days ago the phones prices were effectively cut in half. Why not launch at those price points or heck it’s a mobile phone – why not free. At least they might have gained momentum out of the gate and gotten enough in peoples hands to see if it has legs.

What can we learn from Kin?

Don’t launch it if it is flawed.

Know your level of commitment going in. What are you willing to do if your product doesn’t get off to a good start. A powerhouse like MSFT can pull a stunt like this and still get the buyers to return their call. The rest of us don’t have that luxury.

Communicate what you do that is unique or you do better than anybody else – understand and share whatever your value is. I still have no idea what Kin does that you can’t do with an iPhone, droid, or whatever that motoblur feature is. They had an 8 figure budget to tell their story with and still failed.

Fight where you can win. They weren’t going to out apple apple on tv ads – and other players such as htc are running ads that are pretty clear with their value prop. How did anybody at msft or their agency convince themselves that their story would work. Beyond iPhone I am willing to bet the majority of phone choices occur in-aisle. If MSFT truly believed in the product they should have paid to staff demos 40 hours / week in the verizon stores / best buy.

Above all – be realistic.

If you liked this article be sure to check out Doug Garnett’s Shelf Potato Blog.  You can follow Doug on twitter @drtvguru, and of course at www.theshelfpotato.com

By Ben Smith

The term “Couch Potato” has made it into pop culture, with its own wikipedia listing.  So when my friend Doug Garnett mentioned a concept he kept coming back to when describing dud products at retail, “Shelf Potatos”, I knew exactly what he was talking about, and I figure that anybody who is reading this retail oriented blog can start to get the picture.  Here is the concept, in Doug’s own words:

For years I’ve written about a type of retail product that my agency calls a “shelf potato“. It’s a well loved product — loved by the manufacturer, loved by the retail buyer who brought it in, and loved by the consumers who buy it. Except, the product mostly lounges on the shelf instead of rushing out the door.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Communication can bring shelf potatoes alive – especially communication with direct response television. (That’s DRTV – short-form and long form.)

There are many important examples of shelf potato success. Grills identical to the Foreman grill sat on shelves for nearly 20 years before that infomercial brought them to life. The Drill Doctor drill bit sharpener was languishing on retail shelves until our half hour made them into a superstar and a brand. The Kreg Jig sold well to cabinet shops, but came alive at retail once a half hour infomercial showed homeowners what they could do with it.

For more, read my article with tips for finding those shelf potatoes that communication can bring alive. The article was published by Home Channel News on May 5, 2010 as part of their Hardware Show Daily at the National Hardware Show.

Maybe your shelf potatoes can come to life if you put them on the right program for retail fitness.

What do Shelf Potatos have to do with Retail Leverage?  Well if you’ve had experience with Shelf Potatos, you know that they are enemies of gaining leverage at Retail.  They can stop you in your tracks, or set you back to square one, all the while sucking time and resources away from your primary mission, which is to drive growth for retailers and improve your standing at retail.

From time to time, I will syndicate content from The Shelf Potato Blog.  I think you will find it to be retail infotainment!  Let’s be realistic – if you are reading a retail blog, you think about what makes some products fail and some products succeed.  If we can save one spud from being a dud, then it was all worth it.