The Death Of The Brand
Few days ago, I read a good blog about the Mortality of the Brand (http://ries.typepad.com/ries_blog/2007/03/brand_mortality.html). The author has given two reasons for the demise of the brand.
1: The extinction of a category.
2: The massive line extension in the face of focused competition.
Since the author has explained these two points nicely I will not repeat them. But are these only two reasons for the demise of the brand?
In my eyes the death approaches the brand when
There is no Innovation
Consider Premier Automobile. Once upon a time Premier Padmini was the most popular car in
There is too much innovation
The example here is Starbuck.
"Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand."
Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz
The Brand becomes the Generic Brand
Well... I will give the textbook example here and that is 'Xerox'
The Brand Fails to Give Justice to its USP or Core Competency
Well I feel that the line extension can be one of the reasons for this. Also poor positioning or wrong advertisement message can lead the brand to the death. Consider Hutch's 'Wherever you go Our Network follows' theme. And Count the number of time your curse Hutch for its bad network.
The Change in the consumer behavior
The Entry of the Giant
Well we all know How Coca Cola Killed Gold Spot to bring Fanta. And just imagine what will happen in Indian Retail Market with Wal-Mart's entry.
