Arch Deluxe,
Chain: 惭肠顿辞苍补濒诲鈥檚
Launched: 1996
A new menu item can fail for a number of reasons. Sometimes, like in the case of Dairy Queen鈥檚 Breeze, the public interest just isn鈥檛 there. Other flops can be attributed to marketing missteps: 惭肠顿辞苍补濒诲鈥檚 McAfrika, a pita-style sandwich released in Norway in 2002, hit the market just as a major famine hit southern Africa; 惭肠顿辞苍补濒诲鈥檚 was lambasted for refusing to pull the sandwich.
But sometimes, it鈥檚 simpler: people don鈥檛 like the taste. So it was with the Arch Deluxe.
惭肠顿辞苍补濒诲鈥檚 spent a reported $300 million market testing and advertising the Arch Deluxe hamburger, making it one of the biggest, most public product flops in history. A quarter-pound burger on a potato bun with 鈥渟ecret鈥� mustard and mayonnaise sauce, the Arch Deluxe was marketed as a burger exclusively for adults. Early TV spots showed children reacting with befuddlement and disgust to the sandwich. When that proved unsuccessful, new ads featured chefs extolling the Arch Deluxe鈥檚 fine ingredients. Neither tactic worked.
