Hoover Free Flights Fiasco

[suctionselector]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me about this flop by Hoover? Because I just got myself a Hoover New Wave Washing Machine and the seller said something about only buying it for the promotion. Therefore it had only been used a handful of times and is in working order. All I know is that it was to get rid of some stock from the factory.

Thank You

Jacob

 

[suctionselector]

New Wave Auto Washer 1100

100% Working!

 

[godfreys_guy]

From what I understand...

hoover offered free/cheap flights to people buying their appliances, they didn't limit the amount of flights available and therefore the thing was a blowout.

Customers could purchase a 99 pound vacuum cleaner and get a return airfare to the USA.... FAIL

This then caused a lawsuit in which consumers sued them for the flights not being available... which resulted ultimately in the sale of Hoover by Maytag to Candy.

 

[suctionselector]

That is when...

... Candy started making Hoover washers. Any Hoover washer made by Candy I do not trust. Especially now they explode!

Jacob

 

[gottahaveahoove]

It's true!

It is what caused the separation of HOOVER.  There ar a lot more details,  but,  it was a  disaster.

 

[vacbear58]

Offers

At least in the UK Hoover had a long tradition of money back offers and such like, even back to the 1950s.

The free flights fiasco was actually the second phase of such an offer - they had previously offered free flights to Europe, and although it boosted sales there was a surprisingly small take up of the offer. So they went a bit grander, expecting the same take up only to find, not surprisingly, that people were buying Hoover products left, right and centre for the offer, not for the product itself. I am told that a great many Hoover washing machines and cleaners were given as wedding presents, with the purchaser holding onto the tickets.

The whole thing was totally under-resourced from an adminstrative point of view as well, and then of course the media got a hold of it, court cases and all the rest of it. It completely ruined Hoover's reputation. I believe it cost £45 million in the end to sort out and, as noted above, led to Hoover Europe being sold off to Candy by TTI (or was it still owned by Maytag at that time?).

The whole topic was covered in Evan Davis's TV show "Business Nightmares" which aired recently, if you keep your eyes peeled it will probably be repeated soon.

Al

 

[suctionselector]

Al

What channel is it on?

Thanks

Jacob

 

[gottahaveahoove]

It was still in the grips of

Maytag.

 

[vacbear58]

Channel

Jacob

It was on BBC2. I had a look on the BBC site and youtube but could not find any copies of the segment about Hoover. It was aired in May, so it should come around again fairly soon.

Al