How Unilever, Coke and the Mini car got it so wrong
"Even the biggest businesses can make big mistakes - and when they do, the result can be a commercial calamity. Companies are constantly striving to improve their products and turn a profit. But changing an existing product can go horribly wrong, leaving customers in revolt and companies in crisis. Mishandled marketing and bungling public relations can make the slickest of businesses look incompetent. And the costs both financially and to reputation can be enormous. Persil, Coca-Cola and the British Motor Corporation have provided some of the most extreme examples as Evan Davis has been finding out for a new BBC Two series."
(BBC News, 8 May 2011)
Business Nightmares with Evan Davis - Doomed Designs will be on BBC Two at 20:00 BST on Monday 9 May 2011
Fig.1 '2009 Mini Cooper Turns Fifty and is Younger than Ever', picture 09ELG550925430AC
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
U.S. National Library of Medicine: Chinese Public Health Poster Collection
"The NLM does not own the copyright to the Chinese Public Health Poster Collection located on http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/chineseposters/index.html , nor do we require that users get permission from the library to use the images. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing images from this collection."
(U.S. National Library of Medicine)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Port Sunlight: A Model Village
"Influential model village named after the soap whose fortunes it was based on. Built round the Lever Bros. factory that was moved from Bolton to a marshy site on the south side of the Mersey in 1888. ... 30 different architects created a variety of picturesque & romantic stlye houses. Also a grand boulevard and art gallery along with schools, hospital, gym, social clubs, church and theatre. The village like its contemporary at Bournville was a model for the Garden City & Suburbs movement with W.H.Lever (later Lord Leverhulme.) being a key member of the Garden Cities Association. Also developed model housing on company estates in the Congo and attempted to revive the fishing industry on the Scottish island of Lewis & Harris. Port Sunlight is now a conservation area."
(Chris Coates)
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The Constellations ProjectSHARE
