Why Do Great Companies Make Bad Products? Design Analysis

I've had several product fails of my own, so my intention isn't to bash these companies. Instead, my hope is that we can all learn from each other's mistakes.....also, the chrysler minivans are not part of GM. I misspoke. ALSO also, check out my online industrial design course, Form Fundamentals: bit.ly/335vsqO

Everyone: It's 99.2% ugly Heisenberg: It's only ugly when I say it's ugly.

My drawing professor, Brigid, was one of the head concept artists for the Pontiac Aztek. It’s super cool to see some of her sketches in this video as I know that the Aztek was one of her favorite projects, regardless of the end direction that went in. Love the videos by the way!

An addition to what the video said about polarizing feedback: If 50% of people love a thing and 50% hate it, it’ll probably succeed, because the people who love it will buy it and the people who hate it were probably not your customers anyway

What happened here, is that they asked 100 people just like me if they liked it. They did. I drove one for 12 years, I absolutely loved it. My family, friends, and coworkers told me how ugly it was, but I thought it looked cool. I liked how it was nothing like any other vehicle out there. It wasn't a bad car. I put 245K miles on it before the engine finally said NO MORE! I'd love to get another one.

The aztek was a design focused on practicality. Weird bump for higher head clearance in the back seats, lower headlights because it's better for foggy conditions, smaller wheels are better for fuel efficiency, plastic paneling are like side bumpers and easy and cheap to replace

One of my professors from freshman year actually made the final sketches for the Aztek that were approved as the production car. From what I remember, their account is basically inline with your story here. There were like 3 competing clay models by 3 different designers, and upper management started slapping ideas together until it became an unrecognizable cluster... The professor in question left early into the design development phase in favor of GM's Oldsmobile division.

I absolutely loved my Aztek!! I had a 2003, thing lasted to over 300,000 miles. It was one hell of a reliable vehicle. If I ever find another one, I'm buying it in a heartbeat. I miss that car so much!

GM's old business model of "launch now, fix later" sounds an awful lot like the AAA game industry right now. On another note, I actually like the look of the Aztek. It has a very practical, utilitarian look to it that I find appealing, especially with the high side bumpers

My chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico had one of those. Wonder what he’s up to nowadays…

Often larger corporate structures lead to a disconect between upper management and the engineers & designers doing the work. If the middle managers in between are the type to push for quicker progress that often leads to cutting corners. The best middle managers are ones that push back on upper management a bit to temper their expectations.

I can accept a different-looking product if it's different for a practical or functional reason, but not if it's trying to be "different for the sake of being different".

as a car designer , 17 years in the industry , well you nailed it , this is my daily struggle , and it's far from over !

One thing that people forget about Kodak, they had to start selling their crown jewels to keep afloat. One was a electronic subsidiary that made image sensors using the Kodak library of image theory and design. It was bought by Sony, now the world leader for image sensors and it dominates the digital camera world. Imagine that!

What many people don’t understand about kodak was that while we think of them as a film photography company their real business was everything that supported the production of film and paper. They needed massive amounts of high quality polyester and rather than buy it they had a subsidiary that made it and then sold the lower grade polyester to everyone else they did the same with paper, gelatin, chemical reagents, optical glass, precision instruments, and dozens of other products. The film and paper was practically free to produce. Then they decided to sell off the subsidiary companies for a quick profit. This caused there collapse the same thing is going on with GM, with their sale of Detroit diesel and Allison.

The thing to remember about the Pontiac Aztek is that it had a corporate cousin, the Buick Rendezvous. Basically the same vehicle, but much better looking.

I love the Aztek. When my mom kicked me out while I was still in high school, I lived in it, very comfortably might I add. I toured around the United States with the Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic until I joined the Army. THEN, when I got out of the military I just moved back into the Aztek so I could travel freely. This car changed my life for the better.

The Aztek was kind of strange looking, but both my wife and I owned a couple. They were very practical and fit our lifestyle. I wish we would have kept at least one of them. Even my 3 row Ford Explorer isn't as practical as the Aztek was.

I've never owned an Aztek, being really put off by its looks. I do have a friend that owned three of them over a 8-9 year period. He bought each used, mostly because they were extremely cheap. His summary of them was to close your eyes getting into the car, but enjoy all the features and room the interior design offered. Capacity wise, build wise and performance wise, they were good vehicles. But dang, they looked like the south end of a north bound pig.

Just found the channel… Amazing two videos i’ve seen so far, and this comment section is amazing! You should be really proud of the community you’ve built here.