Flops center stage at failure exhibition
LOS ANGELES — Once cast aside as a cringe-worthy mistake, “Colgate Lasagna” has at last found fame ... as a top flop at the Museum of Failure.
The dental care brand’s 1980s culinary foray joins the lineup of epic fails on display in Los Angeles at a roving popup museum that has proved an ironic success.
A model of the Titanic, coffee-based Coca-Cola and the flashy but underpowered DeLorean car from Back to the Future all have a special place among the more than 100 flops of innovation that make up the show, which first opened in Sweden in June before moving to California this month.
The inventions may trigger facepalms, but the show aims to prove that failure is indeed an option.
“For technological progress you need a lot of failures along the way,” said clinical psychologist Samuel West. Without the all-but-defunct monoski, for instance, the snowboard may never have seen the light of day.
“It is the same for any other social innovation, even us as individuals when we learn new things, we are going to fail. So I think we should accept it more,” said West, who came up with the idea for the museum because he was “tired of the success stories.”
Although the infamous Colgate Lasagna features, West said the packaging is actually a well-researched copy. The company known for toothpaste was not keen to provide a sample from its frozen food — known as one of the biggest marketing duds ever.
Impact of failure
West has no sponsors — as “companies don’t want to be associated” with failure — but every week he receives packages with donations for his collection, from cappuccino flavored chips to the astronomically high-priced — and just as short-lived — “Juiceiro” juicer.
Today, the museum’s exhibits are made up of 40 percent donations, and 60 percent his own finds, and it will move to other cities in the United States early next year.
The Museum of Failure also encourages visitors to own their own botched efforts, confessing to them on index cards and publicly posting them on a wall.
“I liked it because I think it was such an unusual idea,” said Chris Whitehead, an IT worker who visited the museum — and wrote on the wall that he failed his driving test six times.
“I think the lesson to take away is even if you fail you might actually have a lasting impact anyway.”