The Great Fail

With the latest buzz surrounding Jeffrey Katzenberg's newest venture WndrCo, raising a staggering $460 million, we thought...what better time than now to bring back an old fan favorite episode, Quibi? Launched in April 2020 during a worldwide pandemic, Quibi was a new streaming service focused on premium short-form content. With Co-founders Jeffrey Katzenberg, former Chairman of Walt Disney Studio...

On the cold morning of January 28th, 1986, anticipation filled the air as the space shuttle Challenger prepared for its 10th mission. This historic event featured Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian to join a space mission, aiming to inspire students with live broadcasts from orbit. Tragically, just 73 seconds after launch, the Challenger exploded, leaving millions of viewers in shock. In the mo...

In 2015, Alex Garden, the enigmatic co-founder and CEO of Zume, unveiled an ambitious plan to revolutionize the pizza industry with advanced technology and robots. His concept caught the attention of major venture capital funds, including Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, and SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund. With substantial funding and media attention, Zume seemed poised to transform the food...

In the 1980s, Action Park was a summer hotspot for many in the Tri-State area, attracting visitors from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Entrepreneur Gene Mulvihill sought to transform the former Great Gorge Ski Resort into his own 'Disney of Jersey'—one of the first modern American water parks. The concept was promising. Yet, the reality took a darker turn with poorly designed rides, inexpe...

American wrestling, which most notably revolves around the WWE brand, owes much of its success to the influential presence of the McMahons - Vince McMahon, most of all. There is no doubt about the influence he had on wrestling and the way he turned the likes of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, John Cena, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and Hulk Hogan into household names, as well as his role in creating the...

Once at the top of the food chain, Quiznos achieved over $2 billion in sales and had nearly 5,000 restaurant chains. But just as things were heating up, the iconic company found itself in a pickle, leaving behind a very sour taste. Tune in to Episode 63 of The Great Fail to listen to one of the most significant and dramatic restaurant collapses in American history. Special thanks to Jonathan Maze...

A surprising announcement rippled through Silicon Valley in the Spring of 2017. A mysterious 'flying car' venture took the spotlight, fueled by rumors of Google co-founder Larry Page's involvement. A marvel of engineering, this all-electric innovation promised to reduce traffic congestion and open the skies for dreamers—a moonshot that captivated engineers, futurists, and tech enthusiasts. But ove...

As a special bonus episode this week, we are spotlighting another amazing series on the Adweek Podcast Network. Hosted by Jenny Rooney, Adweek's first chief experience officer, Marketing Vanguard: the podcast, spotlights the  people  who are driving the industry forward. It will feature valuable, must-listen nuggets of marketing-leadership wisdom, humility, stories, strategic insights, a...

The Wing, a pioneering and exclusive women's co-working space, shattered glass ceilings and secured over $100 million from investors, including WeWork and Airbnb, venture capitalists, and celebrity investors such as Megan Rapinoe, star of the US National Women's Soccer Team, and comedian, writer, and actress Mindy Kaling. At its peak, The Wing held a valuation of approximately $365 million, mainta...

For 52 years, Bed, Bath & Beyond was the destination for high-quality home goods merchandise, top brands, and a discovery zone for home shopping that made it inspiring and fun. By January 2014, the company had operated more than 1500 stores in North America and had reached a share price of $70 dollars. Despite all the success, the company would soon become a victim of mismanagement, burdened w...

The DeLorean was one of the most era-defining cars of the ‘80s. Sleek, sexy, and unconventional, this iconic car had much promise-- engineering ingenuity, celebrity fanfare, and media hype. But less than a year after it rolled out its first cars, the Company would collapse in a tailspin of lies, drug scandal, bankruptcy, racketeering, criminal trials, and government conspiracies. Find out what led...

In 1952, Revlon created one of the most iconic, paradigm-shifting ad campaigns known as "Fire & Ice," which posed a dramatic twist on why women wore makeup. Instead of seeking male admiration, it empowered women by prioritizing their ambitions and needs. For decades, Revlon spearheaded feminism and cosmetic innovation, establishing itself as the world's second-largest producer, with products s...

In 1895 ,  Schwinn was driven by the pursuit of an American dream when bicycling was still a relatively new sport. As one of the longest-standing bicycle companies, Schwinn signified influence and innovation amidst a biking craze that further catapulted their success. But over the years, it would lose its luster after a series of poor leadership decisions that led it to a dead end. Get the full st...

Mars Hill was a Seattle-based church led by Mark Driscoll- a beloved, endearing, powerful presence in the evangelical Christian community. He built Mars Hill into one of the fastest-growing churches in the nation, with close to 15,000 attendees and an additional 260,000 viewers tuning in online every week. But behind the perfect persona, was a twisted reality waiting to be uncovered. What was reve...

FTX was once touted as the cryptocurrency trading platform with its founder, visionary Sam Bankman-Fried, promising to revolutionize the industry. This once-promising company was on a path to decentralize and democratize a highly complex investment within the crypto world but by 2022, headlines that read, “Scam of the Century”, “Bank Fraud and Conspiracy”, and “Criminal Charges” pointed to a grim...

The Great Fail kicks off Season 3 with one of the biggest failures of 2023 thus far, as we watched one of the nation’s largest banks unravel. Once a rising star in the tech industry, Silicon Valley Bank was a paragon for startup founders and venture capitalists reaching dizzying heights of success in 2020. So how did it go from boom to bust just a few short years after? Was it greed, mismanagement...

For over 4 decades, Tower Records was a pioneer in the music industry and the bedrock of record store culture. It was run by rebels and outsiders, where founder Russ Solomon was revered and idolized. Tower would become the mecca for music fans creating a generation that lived by their diehard slogan, “No Music, No Life”. For decades, it seemed like the sun would never set on the iconic yellow and...

In January 2021, the world watched as Reddit traders faced off with Wall Street elites in a trading mania over GameStop shares. Matei Psatta, one of the traders of the subreddit WallStreetBets, joins us this week to comment on what this means and why the financial markets may never be the same. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People tend to think that Netflix killed Blockbuster – but that's not true. Blockbuster's demise was actually caused by something far more self-destructive, and almost a decade after the fall of this movie rental giant, there are still misconceptions about what really occurred. Get the scoop on how Blockbuster was taken down, here on The Great Fail. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

The Great Fail is taking a break this week. Instead of normal programming, The Great Fail is hosting Metaverse Marketing, another podcast series in the Adweek Podcast Network. In this Season 2 premiere, host Cathy Hackl, metaverse and web3 strategist, dives into how the metaverse is changing our world both on and offline. Hackl explores what it truly means to build a community and why it is such a...

Several legal cases were pending, culminating in January 2019, when a class-action lawsuit led by the Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson was filed against the multi-level marketing Company, LulaRoe. This one alleged that the founders of LulaRoe made false and deceptive representations regarding their business, inspiring thousands of optimistic entrepreneurs to invest their money into the luc...

It was a somewhat ordinary day for David Pyott, the CEO of Allergan, back in April 2014. That is until his eyes glanced over at the TV screen in his office, where he learned that billionaire hedge fund manager and activist investor Bill Ackman was about to back the takeover of his company by way of a hostile takeover. The acquirer was none other than the infamous and controversial pharmaceutical c...

The Great Fail is proud to present Home / Work, a new marketing podcast that is not about marketing. Hosted by AMA Marketing Hall of fame inductee Antonio Lucio, Home / Work is about the real talk on the good, bad, ugly, and extraordinary of balancing life and work. We will bring true role models of our industry together with their partners to discuss how they do it.   On the premiere ep...

Bikram Choudhury was the founder of the wildly popular hot yoga practice that many considered to cure ailments, detoxify bodies, and change lives. At the height in 2006, there were 1,650 studios in at least 40 countries, but by 2013, a series of allegations surfaced when one by one, women stepped forward with accusations that included sexual assault, rape, and abuse against the man revered as a gu...

Before there was Facebook, there was MySpace, once the world’s most dominating social networking company. In the summer of 2005, one of the biggest deals in internet history made headlines when News Corp., famously known as Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, acquired MySpace for $580 million in cash. In the business realm, it seemed that with the backing of the media giant, MySpace would have the worl...