ESPN Flatline

Very interesting piece via Business 2.0/CNN Money, which dissects the failure of ESPN Mobile - Disney pulled the plug on this venture after just 8 months.

This is such a massive "I told you so" for so many reasons, not the least of which was the fact it was one hell of an ugly-looking product (think anti-iPod) I get the fact ESPN has a good idea of its typical consumer, but somewhere along the line of throwing stones at network television and getting drunk on their own self-importance, someone lost the plot...thinking that savvy males (predominently) would run around with a gimmicky giant turd of a branded mobile phone.

As a side story, ESPN promoted the crap out of this...with a tidal wave of house advertising on ESPN, not to mention a Super Bowl ad.

Scorecard update: +1 for product over brand and -1 for efficacy of TV advertising