Product Changes Can Backfire — How Tweaks Risk Losing Customers and Revenue It's important to continuously innovate your products, especially since competitors are always trying to catch up. However, there are times when you have a best-selling "staple" product that is already perfect as it is. In such cases, making changes to it can do more harm than good.

Why do consumer products companies feel compelled to change products that consumers have been happily using for decades just the way they are? Didn't they learn the lessons from New Coke being introduced in 1985, only to be met with the backlash from all the die-hard fans of Original Coke that had been around since 1892?

Yes, I see the desire to constantly be innovating. But, consumer product "staples" are a little different than a piece of technology like an iPhone that requires new bells and whistles to be added each year to break out from the sea of competitors that are chasing them.

For example, we have all been eating Heinz Ketchup in its same form since it was introduced in 1876, with no reason to seek an alternative because the original works perfectly fine, just the way it is. But Gillette and Schick's men's care brands obviously didn't read that memo, as you will see in the case study below.