Marketing is an essential process for the success of any provided product or service and even the success of companies depends mostly on the success of its marketing campaigns. There are many mistakes companies make in their marketing campaigns, which have serious consequences. This is also applicable for start-ups, large companies, and giants.

Marketing is not the art of devising intelligent methods for the disposal of what is produced, but it is the art of generating the highest value to the customers. Philip Kotler

Philip Kotler identifies ten major reasons that are considered as serious marketing errors :

1. Lack of focus and direction of companies towards marketing and targeting customers adequately

2. Lack of the understanding of the institution to its target customers, in terms of needs and changes that they experience.

3. Failure of the company to follow up and monitor the conditions of its competitors. As a result, it lags behind them and does not keep up with any developments.

4. The institution's mismanagement of the relations with its shareholders, either by ignoring them completely or by focusing on their requirements without others

5. The inability of the company to find new opportunities, or to identify and seize them, such as any new technological development, or any new markets, or even any gaps appears after a company lefts the market.

6. Deficiencies and errors in the marketing planning procedures, such as the wrong understanding of the market or its mechanisms.

7. Lack of production policies or customer service, which wastes any marketing efforts taken by the institution.

8.  The feeble attempts and efforts of the company to create the brand and delivering it to customers.

9.  The lack of organization of  the institution which effects on the marketing efforts.

10. Not exploiting the technological development enough leads to to deteriorate the company's ranking in the list of successful companies that are up-to-date with developments and exploit them well.

We'll mention some of the worst situations that any business can go through, to  warn the entrepreneurs to be more careful in monitoring the coming opportunities, the opportunities the already have, or the moment of making decision.
• 20th century Fox is one of the world's largest studios which is responsible for producing and distributing a collection of world-class films. Executive management of 20th Century Fox decided a very short-sighted decision, where is signed an agreement to grant all rights related to the famous Star Wars movies - which have not yet been released - to George Lucas, creator and director of the series only for $ 20,000. The result is that George Lucas' expected profits from this agreement - estimated today that it exceeded three billion dollars at least. This is what made this decision a global model of the concept of the disastrous short-sighted decisions between the enormous long-standing company and between one person.

• In 1876, Western Union was following a policy of monopolizing all-new telecom products and companies as soon as they appeared, led by the long-standing Telegraph, which generated huge profits. In that period, a new offer was made to Western Union to buy the full rights of a new invention called the phone for only $ 100,000 - equals $ 2 million now - but the company's president, William Orton, considered the idea of the new invention too silly. A few years later, the phone - which the president of Western Union called "useless electric game", became the cornerstone for the launch of a completely different picture of the movement of the evolution of all mankind. Western Union tried to correct its deadly mistake, and spent many years trying to challenge the invention of Graham Bell and negotiated him again, but all there attempt failed.

• In 1985, Coca-Cola celebrated its 100th anniversary as the world's best soft drink market leader. In its first 100 years of self-renewal, it changed its brand from Coca-Cola to "Coke". Also, it changed the  secret recipe of the fizzy drinks, which was the basis of its fame. It made many experiments that cost a large budgets to ensure that the taste and flavor of the new drinks better than the traditional flavor.

Just three months after Coca-Cola announced its centennial strategy to change its trademark and brand name, the company retreated entirely from this wrong decision. It returned to its usual brand and the secret recipe that lasted for 100 years according to consumers' desire. All the new Coke boxes was pulled out of the market.
Interestingly, the company expected consumers to like the flavor of the new drink. All the taste tests of the new drink were very positive, and it predicted that the new drink would sweep the market and be a new shift in the company's history.