Strong brands are the typical 800-pound gorillas. Their hulking presence is as eye-catching – but only as long as the element of entertainment is not forgotten by those seeking attention.
Often they get lazy.
Not always. But during one such rare a moment, a competitor brand spots them on the wrong foot, and dives-in for the kill. Chances are, once in many such-an-instance, a strong brand is caught unaware. It falls prey to a shrewd marketing strategy executed by a smaller, swifter brand. Think of a case of common cold turning into pneumonia. A lucky shot, but one worth the bullet for the smaller brand. However ‘cool’ the megabrand, being lazy costs it the crown. And once turbulence hits it at 20,000 feet, sea-level is a lesson only moments away.
Among the myths that circle around a widely recalled brand is that it is too big to fall. Actually, that is true. Precisely why, when it happens, the world takes note.
Ask a globe-trotter of a baby boomer to pen down his partial list of powerful brands from the 1980s. Chances are, his list will include some or all of the following brands: Sony, Sears, Pan Am, Atari, Kodak, Microsoft, Polaroid, Coca-Cola, Disney, IBM, Oldsmobile, and TWA. Now ask yourself: why are some of these brands non-existent or only faintly recalled by buyers of today? They did not live up to the responsibility of remaining relevant as the years rolled by. They have become what we call ‘zombie’ brands – ones that exist on paper or are fondly remembered in an attack of nostalgia by buyers around the world, but come with no worthwhile products that can convince a demanding, young buyer in the 21st century to include them in his consideration set. Good news is – some of these brands still are worthwhile names for marketers around the world. Not solely for the lessons their failure tales have to offer, but for the value they hold in case their respective owners consider spending capital to get them walking and talking again. Then of course, fairy tale revivals are hard to come by.
PR DISASTERS KILLED TWO LEGACY BRANDS
How could an airline carrying over 17 million passengers a year, serving over 160 countries in six continents with its fleet of 230-plus aircraft during its peak in the 1970s fizzle out in a matter of just over a decade?
Pan Am (Pan American World Airways) was one of the most respected airline brands in the Cold War era. It was the unofficial flag carrier of America. The famous image of The Beatles’ 1964 arrival at JFK airport on a Pan Am Boeing 707 flight is hard to forget for most Americans. So is the story of con artist Frank Abagnale who for four years (in the second half of the 1960s) fooled the world posing as a Pan Am pilot – as documented in his autobiography ‘Catch Me if You Can’. By the mid-1980s, the airline brand had won accolades for shaping the global airline industry due to the many innovations it introduced in air travel like the use of jet aircrafts, jumbo planes (most notably the Boeing 747s), and computerised reservation technologies that were considered beyond time. During the early 1970s, Pan Am’s aggressive advertising made the airline famous. Its trademark slogan, “World’s Most Experienced Airline,” won the hearts of all international fliers. From the advertising to the crew service – the airline was respected and won great recall through word of mouth. In fact, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (wife of JFK) always flew First Class on Pan Am while travelling between NY and Athens, despite being the co-owner of Olympic Airlines! So how did this Ritz-Carlton of the airline industry meet sudden death? Bad PR.
The energy crisis of 1973, downturn in air demand and negative political forces weakened its financials. Its fame also won attention of the wrongdoers. Two terrorist attacks broke its reputation’s backbone – the 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Pakistan (20 people were killed and 120 were injured), and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Scotland (that killed 270). The Gulf War reduced Pan Am’s flights to zero passenger flights and the company was declared bankrupt in December 1991. Since then, six attempts have been made to revive the Pan Am airline brand but all that survives today in the name of Pan Am is Pan Am Railways.
Pan Am’s casual attitude towards spreading awareness about the levels of security it had introduced much before 1988 cost it its life. Not many know that the airline was actually one of the safest to fly in the whole world, being the only to have a customised security system installed called ‘Alert Management Systems’ way back in 1986. But not only did the airline forget to promote its new safety standards, it also decided to keep security at a minimum so as to not cause inconvenience to passengers and lose business.
After more than two decades of the death of the largest international US airline, one is still confident that unlike more recent brand shutdowns in the American aviation business (like Continental and Northwest Airlines), Pan Am’s brand is worthy of more attention. Why? It’s been 20 years since the company hasn’t serviced a single plane, but its blue globe logo is still flaunted on merchandise, and as recently as in 2012, it was the subject of a TV series on ABC!
The story of Trans World Airlines (TWA) is similar. It was once the third-largest airline in the US domestic airline circuit. In fact, after Pan Am, it was the second unofficial carried of US and had a large European and Middle-Eastern network. TWA brand met its end when the airline brand was merged with American Airlines in 2001. Because the airline was a flag carried for US with a huge European presence, and flew to Israel, TWA was frequently on the radar of Palestinian guerilla groups and was involved in five terrorist attacks between 1969 and 2001. The erosion of public trust in the TWA brand ensured that it would never see better days ahead. So what went wrong for TWA? TWA lacked a clear vision for handling a crisis and did not have an effective crisis response plan set in place for emergencies. This “inefficient channel of communication caused the public to respond negatively towards the airline brand which hurt the overall success of the brand relationship between the airline and the public” (Duncan T., ‘Brands and Shareholder relationships’, c2008, pp.141).
Today, the idea of reviving the TWA brand sounds a hard reality. Unless another investor like Carl Icahn (who initially bought over TWA in 1985) is found willing to invest in a cyclical industry such as the airlines by buying out American Airlines for a mighty $2 billion. But on AA’s part, there could be a partial revival to make the most of TWA’s legacy and increase its brand value. Not choosing to do anything with the TWA brand will be wasting a name that took 75 years to build.
HOW CULTURE CULLED TWO TECH BRANDS
The soul-touching philosophy of living and dying by a category has (almost) killed two brands that were once considered masters of photography.
More than ten years back, after failing to improve falling sales, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy. Although the brand has found many interested buyers in the years following the bankruptcy filing (PLR IP Holdings owns it today), it has effectively killed itself over the years. Today, this pioneer of instamatic cameras is nothing more than a filter option on smartphones and tablets. The brand waited until 2008 to switch to digital products and even the hiring of Lady Gaga as its creative director and launching of the Instagram-type app (called Polomatic) has helped it little. With time, its association with artists turned counterproductive because of the changing profile of the very artists who were its biggest users. So while Polaroid continued to become popular, its credibility started to fall. The solution would have been to allow other camera manufacturers – like Canon, Kodak, Minolta et al – to embrace instant photography, perhaps charging them a royalty (like Qualcomm does in the CDMA business). But this is where Polaroid missed the plot. It took one candidate who was serious about instant photos (Kodak) to court! This killed the instant photography market. It killed Polariod too! Polaroid can however still change perceptions, and offer itself as an extension to instant photography. It should not focus on low-margin hardware. It should offer itself as a valued-service, time-tested license. This brand deserves more than just a 1 cm-square space for its icon on your smartphone.
The problem with Kodak on the other hand was much simple. It became a common noun for conventional photography. In the early 1990s, it held a share of 90% in the world film market. Death of this brand was again a culture problem – a mindset of that of an ostrich with its head stuck in the ground, unwilling to see change coming. For over four decades, this brand was unmissable at the Grand Central Station in New York – the 16×18 foot Kodak Coloramas (photographs) personified what Kodak called ‘Kodak Moments’. But this popularity made its brand managers myopic. They forgot consumer orientation and assumed that buyers would see the products only the way Kodak wants them to. People who contest that Kodak missed the digital age of photography, can’t be farther from truth. Few know that Kodak was actually the inventor of the digital camera – and when? 1975! But it did not introduce the product in the market for fear of killing its cash cow – films. Where Kodak should start now is by asking itself the right question. It has already filed for bankruptcy and the only way is up. If Ford could wake up from a bad dream, so can Kodak. A worldwide launch of widely marketable digital imaging products, with the rightly positioned show-studios and a tsunami of advertising will make life comfortable for the now-forgotten Kodak.
HOW MANAGEMENT COMPULSION KILLED THE ONCE #2
Once the world’s largest second-largest oil company (until 2001, when it recorded a topline of $51.13 billion), Texaco is today just one of many brands that pops out accidentally from Chevron’s pockets from time to time. The brand ran into legal trouble when it lost a three-year-long, $11 billion civil suit against Penzoil and filed for bankruptcy protection in 1987, after 86 years of operations. Since it was merged with Chevron in 2001, the Texaco brand has been killed in phases. First, it was exclusively licensed out to the Shell Oil Company for two years. When the contract ended in 2004, Chevron promised much in the name of revival of the Texaco brand. Today, very few people remember the red-coloured star T-name and logo. Strange it is to imagine that just a decade back, there were over 7000 gas stations in US that sported the Texaco logo. At present there are just about 20 gas stations in America that boast off this once revered brand. For Texaco, the brand died not because of any other reason but management compulsion. Post-2004, the merged company had to decide whether to invest in two brands or one. It chose the smaller, less-controversial Chevron. So why is it that the Texaco brand is still worth a revival? A 2009 study by the Oil Price Information Service, revealed that even after being literally dead for over seven years, the Texaco oil brand was able to fetch 2 cents more a gallon than competitors, and of the 45 branded retail oil brands, it was the no.1. More dollars at the pump is definitely because the Texaco brand still enjoys massive recall amongst today’s youth – both in US and overseas. Here is what Chevron could do. Get Texaco back on the shelves for a couple of years, invest bucks on promotion, and then instead of spinning if off into a separate brand, sell it to a willing suitor for a few billion bucks or give exclusive geographical (or global) rights to the oil brand to some other company. Either way, the Texaco brand will be reborn.
UNCONVENTIONAL AND UNDERUTILIZED
Napster which became a rage as a P2P music sharing platform when it started in 1999 was forced to shut down by the court in 2001 after the brand ran into legal tussles over copyright infringements (against the Recording Industry Association of America). Between 2001 and 2013, Napster’s ownership has changed hands twice. First Roxio acquired it in 2003 for $2.43 million. In September 2008, US retailer Best Buy bought the Napster copyright from Roxio for a much higher $121 million. In December 2011, Napster merged with Rhapsody, and that hasn’t helped the brand much. Napster has the potential of becoming a cult brand – it already has an image of everything not necessarily lawful and definitely unconventional. If a established record company like Sony BMG, EMI or Warner Music Group could pick up the Napster name and leverage the brand’s image amongst today’s ‘typically atypical’ youth, it could earn millions. One buyout and quick advertising is all that Napster requires. Given its business, ATL advertising could come quiet inexpensive. Think social media!
A TOUGH GAME TO WIN
Atari is another brand that first hit global headlines 30 years ago when it launched the first videogame, ‘Pong’. The brand grew weaker over the years because it failed to keep innovating in the fast changing landscape of the gaming world. In the 70s and 80s, the brand was the leading home console seller. Even a decade back, Atari was the highest selling brand of videogames in Europe, but since 2000, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have got the better of Atari. At present, the brand is working double time to move from conventional retail games to digital games. It has also launched many titles for iOS and Android mobile platforms. But a total revival of the brand would perhaps require an outsider firm to put in some enormous efforts to introduce more titles and perhaps a slew of hardware devices. Of all the brands we have discussed so far, Atari’s revival is the most difficult as despite having a legacy and a brand recall, it has become oblivious to video gaming youth around the world. Atari was the player to pioneer elements like gaming cartridges and licensing in the world of video games. Instead of going alone, Atari would do best to sell a stake in its brand to an established player and work towards the revival.
HOW A BESTSELLER PC BRAND WAS BLOWN AWAY
Compaq is one brand in the world of technology that often gets one asking, “Why has HP made the brand so weak?” The brand is today relegated to what is popularly called ‘entry-level’ computing, and means much less to PC and tablet consumers today than it did during the pre-Carly Fiorina days. HP is already synonymous to basic designs and basic computer hardware and software today. What value does the company expect from Compaq by positioning it on pricing (what else does a ‘basic computing device’ positioning mean)?
AND OTHERS TOO…
Tower Records, Circuit City, Brim Coffee, Borders, Chiclets, HMV, National, and the battery of auto brands including the likes of Oldsmobile, Saturn and Plymouth are only a few of those classic brands that managed the impossible – they died out when consumers around the world actually got buying more of what they were selling!
Retail, Cars, Electronics – while these categories grew, these brands that grew myopic over the years proved how once in a lifetime brand failures come along, more than once in a lifetime. But the good news is that all these above-mentioned brands are waiting for a recall, and are better walking than dead. Albeit, as shadows of their former selves. Can they adjust to the new order when they see sunlight again? A question better answered by consumers who would judge the bounceback.
As much as it is important for a zombie brand to focus on a revival, it is critical that it learns the art of remaining relevant. That can’t be taught, yet has to be mastered. One revival is altogether a difficult task. A second time, it would be better dead than walking.
