What is a harbinger of failure?

harbinger of failure (noun)

A consumer with a knack for repeatedly purchasing flop products.

Did you get in early on Google Glass and Amazon’s Fire Phone? If so, you might be a “harbinger of failure.” Back in 2015, MIT Sloan marketing professors Duncan Simester and Catherine Tucker turned conventional wisdom on its head: Not all positive feedback is good feedback, and product sales don’t translate to success if the wrong people are buying.

The research — conducted using transaction data from a large U.S. convenience store chain — showed that such harbingers’ early adoption of a new product is a strong signal that a product will fail. These customers have unusual preferences and tend to buy things that appeal to only a narrow slice of the marketplace, according to the research. The more they buy, the less likely it is that the product will succeed.

Firms can identify these customers through past purchases of either new products that failed or existing products that few other customers have purchased.

“The next question is, where else does this happen? We’re not sure yet, but we’re contemplating ideas,” Simester said at the time. “One idea might be, there are harbingers of political failure: donors to political campaigns who systematically give to losing campaigns.”

Are you a harbinger of failure? What products did you buy early that didn’t make it?

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