A Brand that Last a Lifetime: Study about Revitalizing Declining and Dead Brands

Critics often observe that “all brands have their day” after a company starts to fall in the marketplace or disappears entirely. Their perceptive is that all brands have a limited lifespan and cannot be expected to be influential indefinitely. Other experts, on the other hand, believe that brands will survive forever, and that long-term success is as much a function of the marketers' talent and insight. All brands are going through their individual life cycles. Companies are constantly striving to revive and adapt their brands to the evolving market. Brand managers and their companies determine how brands adapt to their changing environment. The convenience of brand managers and companies and the evolving nature of markets are some of the factors that determine whether brands remain or become extinct. According to Brian Lischer in Ignyte (2020), a brand is the identifiable feeling a product or company evokes, it is more than just a name, concept, design, or icon. A company's, organization's, or individual's brand is how others who interact with it view them. Brands, then, exist only in the minds of consumers. Everyone who comes into contact with them, including colleagues, investors, the media, and, perhaps most importantly, customers, remembers them. Simply put, brands are people's impressions of themselves.

In the case of items such as cars or cellphones, it is impossible to estimate the average life span of a company. The brand's ability to win the market decides how long it can survive. A number of factors play a role in deciding a brand's lifespan. Reymond Vernon developed a product life cycle theory, according to Steers and Nardon (2006), that clearly illustrates different phases in the life span of a brand, including product development, introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. With continuity comes the opportunity to design products and concepts that balance what customers wanted yesterday with what they will want tomorrow, rather than what they want today. Many previous examples of products that have stood the test of time, such as Coca-Cola and Tide Detergent, are dismissed by critics who say that no brand will last forever. These brands have adapted to changing market dynamics while maintaining their core principles and goals, which have remained consistent since their inception. Finally, for a brand to remain important through generations, it must have been developed over time by a multigenerational team dedicated to innovation and a superior product or service.

According to Noah (2013), for a brand to have immortality, it must continue to have a competitive advantage in terms of product differentiation (product, services, personnel, channel, and symbols). Moreover, how well brand management monitors changes in the environment, customer preferences, strategies, and technology to continue equipping the brand with point-of-difference and/or refer is key to the continued success of the brands on the market. Some brands have been around for decades, even centuries. Therefore, we believe that brands can last forever, as evidenced by several brands entering their one hundredth year of existence, that the researchers will be mentioning later.

There is No Reason for a Brand to Ever Become Obsolete

1. Revival of Dead Brands

There are a lot of brands that already gone through decline and are on the verge of being obsolete. Dead brand is an issue that is complex and sometimes controversial because if it happens on a brand that is well known worldwide, it would bring out a lot of speculations on why it happened. But a brand being dead is not always the end of it, it is sometimes the start of innovation within that brand itself, just to give a concrete example of reviving a dead brand, we would use Polaroid. According to the editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, Polaroid Corporation or also known as Primary PDC is a manufacturer of cameras, film and optical equipment that was founded by Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991). Herbert also invented instant photography. Polaroid was originated way back 1932 as Land-Wheelwright Laboratories which produces plastic sheet light polarizer. The company continued to produces a lot of technology that is new to the eye of the people in that time until they launched the Polaroid Land Cameras. Which delivered a finished sepia-toned print 60 seconds after exposure. In the 1950s the cameras were refined to produce black-and-white prints in 15 seconds, in the 1960s a color-developing process and film cartridges were introduced. Due to the continuous success of Polaroid they gained a lot of customers.

However, once digital cameras were launched in 2000s, Polaroid started to decrease it sales and also its market, other people consider the fact that Polaroid didn't consider innovation and shortly after that in 2008 Polaroid declared bankruptcy and they will not continue producing films and cameras. A lot of their market was certain that it was the end of Polaroid, but the company was acquired by a Dutch company, Impossible Project. And in 2017 it was renamed as Polaroid Originals, and since then they've managed to revive the brand by just provide what the brand is missing 9 years ago, and that was innovation. Impossible Project took a lot of pieces from the classic Polaroid and mixed them with the present technological aspects that we have in the market. What is embarrassingly outdated and unfashionable one year, suddenly becomes retro and hip a few years down the line. It's happened to vinyl, it’s currently happening to cassettes, and it’s also happened to Polaroid.

Reviving a brand is not just feasible; it may very well be a more attractive strategy than launching a new brand. According to Thomas Sunil (2018), “As Aaker (1991) pointed out, ‘‘the revitalization of a brand is usually less costly and risky than introducing a new brand, which can cost tens of millions and will more likely fail than succeed (p. 242).” Sometimes dying or dead brands may still have significant brand equity in terms of high brand awareness and a strong brand image. This is the mentality that a lot of entrepreneurs is having that's why they don't believe that a brand can be obsolete because there's a lot of ways or factors to avoid it.

2. Decline and Death of Brands

Branding in the 21st century is still about taking ownership, and not just for property and goods. It's about taking ownership of what your company stands for, admitting your flaws, and winning consumer confidence and loyalty through your thoughts, deeds, and stories (Holland 2017). Companies like Coca-Cola have tens of billions of dollars in brand equity (Suroweicki 2004) which is according to Investopedia, it defines as “the value premium that a company generates from a product with a recognizable name when compared to a generic equivalent. Companies can create brand equity for their products by making them memorable, easily recognizable, and superior in quality and reliability” and brands have come to be seen as the greatest long-term commodity - economic engines capable of withstanding volatility and producing profits for decades. As a result, corporations spend billions on brand promotions and strive to imprint their logo on everything they see (Suroweicki 2004).

But still, there’s something unexpected happening in branding land. Even companies have spent masses of capital introducing their brand and securing the established one, consumers have become less loyal. Before, if you have a set of costumers today, it will pretty sure that most of them would still be present around two years, five or even ten from now. But, it’s no longer accurate. A study by retail-industry tracking firm NPD Group found that more or less costumers who described themselves as highly loyal to a certain brand, were no longer loyal a year later. Consumers are continuously looking for a better option, that made companies open to introduce a new product (Suroweicki 2004). Consumers have also become more demanding: while product quality and reliability have generally improved, satisfaction rates have remained flat, and in some cases have even decreased. Businesses now have to compete with consumers that are well-informed and have high standards (Suroweicki 2004).

Since their options are limited, choosing a specific brand is less important to them. Before, loyal shopper will look at all of the brands on the shelves and choose one based on their brand loyalty. In their weekly click-and-collect order, the user now just looks at the top two or three rows of the retailers (Stagnaro 2019). Consider Nokia. It had the world's sixth-most valuable brand in 2002, estimated at $30 billion by the consultancy Interbrand. However, the following year, Nokia made a simple error: it failed to manufacture the clamshell-style mobile phones that the customers demanded. As a result, Nokia lost $6 billion in equity.

3. Causes of Brand Decline

There’s a lot of companies that used Product life cycle management, because this management helps them to introduce their brand or product to the consumers, and also it helps them to analyze which stages that they needed to improve. This cycle has 4 stages these are: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. (Levitt, 1965). The product evolutionary cycle (PEC), introduced by Tellis and Crawford (1981), is a more advanced version of the PLC paradigm that provides further insights into how a brand evolves. In a biological sense, the PEC claims that three factors influence organism evolution: generative (genetics), selective (environment), and meditative (intervention by other species, specifically humans). According to (Holak & Tang, 1990). This framework implies that a brand can change by time to time. And also helps the brand to live longer in the market. These cycles help them to identify the causes of brand decline and by that they can quickly determine which stages that they need to solve or improve.

3.1. Managerial Actions

Brand names sometimes fail, according to Ron Strauss of Brandzone, since ‘‘organizational culture, managers, and workers come up with excuses rather than behaving with honesty." (R. Strauss, 2006). Because although external influences and strategic decisions stay unchanged, organizational leaders may have a positive influence on brand security. As per our findings, these activities fall into four broad categories: product consistency, cost increases, cost reductions, brand indifference, and failure to remain with either the target audience.

3.2. Product Quality

Just one powerful product may trick administration towards passivity, so in this situation, that company's brand inherent performance has now become the demise. Although short-term sacrifices in customer satisfaction for price purposes have little impact on customer loyalty, managers make the mistake of thinking that customers are able to embrace or deal with both the transition. That being said, if consumers' interactions with either the product do not meet their standards, the product will begin to deteriorate. Cadillac's downward trend over the last twenty years is a good example of just that. These are currently undergoing a transformation that will be explored further in this section.

3.3. Price Increases

Potential customers would eventually desert a product if it proceeds to boost rates unless providing a major increase in benefits. Volkswagen substituted the Rabbit with such a younger version, that Golf, after the Rabbit design struggled in the United States. Volkswagen, on the other hand, had been unable to maintain its market share and was forced to raise costs until everything eventually forced itself off the registration market that had previously been a pioneer (Serafin, 1993).

3.4. Price Cuts

When companies initiate to cut their prices to increase their profit or sales, can cause a huge impact to their brands. For example, Lacoste company. Lacoste was a known brand in the United States until the 1980s, when their sales began to decline because of price cutting; it results of decreasing their monthly sales because of lack of strategies in terms of pricing, also the parent company which is General Mills, initiated to lower the prices and expanded distribution to make their sales back (Lacoste’s Riposte, 2005).

3.5. Inability to Stay with the Target Market

Identifying your target markets helps you to evaluate what consumer needs and wants. Prioritizing their needs and wants are the most effective way to gain customer’s popularity, loyalty and the ability to stay at the market. At the point when the target market moves away from the brand, the brand can move into decline phase. In 1981, the British tie retailer failed to do research about men’s shopping behavior. Their stores only sold ties, cufflinks and scarves, but they noticed that most of their customers are mostly buying their ties when they bought shirts. Even though Tie Rack offered quality scarves, ties and cufflinks it wasn’t enough to have customer’s popularity. (Aaslaid, 2016) In that case they are not able to stay in their target market and also into main market. This, company showed that you need to have gathered some research or study about your target market or customer, to have effective framework to increase sales and to maintain the popularity to stay in the market.

4. Deconstructing Brand Decline

The world appears to be collapsing under a deluge of icons. In the last decade, businesses seeking to compete in an increasingly dynamic market have adopted the gospel of branding with renewed enthusiasm (wired.com, 2004). Concerning this, a major decrease in unit revenue over time is the true indication of imminent brand demise. Although sales can fluctuate due to market conditions and competitors' behavior, a sustained drop is a warning sign. Quick-fix options, such as boosting premiums or adding brand extensions, are used by certain administrators to combat this. While such acts may increase sales, they also obscure and exacerbate the underlying issues. As a result, it is critical to deconstruct the decline in terms of credible revenue precursors to prevent (or reverse) a negative outcome (Thomas and Kohli, 2009). To do so, we return to the principle of brand equity, which is described as the differential impact of consumer brand awareness on a customer's reaction to marketing action (Keller, 1999). Thus, a shift in one or all of the three main elements of a brand's equity can signify a brand's imminent decline, such as a decline in brand knowledge, blurring of the differential impact, or mediocre consumer reaction.

4.1. Differential effect

In today's changing marketplace, buyers must be given a convincing reason to select a single brand over the many other options open to them. It's also crucial to make sure that customers have enough exposure to such an advertisement so that they're aware of the brand's claims (www.mckinsey.com, 2020). If advertisers succeed at this, they would expect to see a differential impact of brand knowledge on customer behavior against their brand––evidence that customers think their product is more attractive than rival products. Marketers will use one of two paths to achieving this aim. The first approach is concerned with the brand's appeal to customers. Consumers also believe that multiple products of the same product group are quite similar. In such cases, buyers can be persuaded to select a certain brand if it is ‘‘value-priced," meaning that it provides a high product at a low or affordable price. When a business has a cost-benefit, this approach is particularly viable. The development of separation from other brands is a common second strategy. Superior consistency, physical characteristics, or intangible effects will all be used to justify this. If marketers are effective in generating differentiation, they may be able to charge a higher price for their product. If they follow the above approach, they must establish that the brand is well-differentiated, since this is at the center of every compelling marketing message designed to persuade consumers to purchase their product (Thomas and Kohli, 2009).

4.2. Brand knowledge

As stated by Kotler and Armstrong, “All the thoughts, feelings, images, experiences, beliefs, and so on that become associated with the brand.” Therefore techleens.com described brand knowledge as to how consumers are conscious of a brand; it can be formed in the minds of consumers through the brand image, experience, and knowledge. Social networking advertisements, special holidays or events, brand ambassadors, word of mouth, freebies, and other perks associated with a brand will all be used to gain brand knowledge. Moreover, the consumers must be aware of a brand for it to be profitable. They must appreciate why it's a better choice than the substitutes, whether it's because it's exclusive or whether it's a better deal. The two elements of brand understanding are now discussed: brand awareness and brand image (Thomas and Kohli, 2009).

5. Revitalizing Brands

All brands are going through a life cycle and naturally ending up with decline stage and most of the factors that contributes in the downfall of the brand are the changes in the preferences of the customer and penetration of new players (BCcampus, 2018). Brand revitalizing is applied when the company or brand is in verge of becoming obsolete, this is the remedial measures to avoid becoming irrelevant to evolving market and changing environment (Prachi, 2019). Hence, revitalizing brand is a long term initiative, it is the test of patience because it takes a long time to fabricate and it takes losses in the same time, but, as long the company is able to address the causes of decline and understanding why the brand failed to become less-relevant in the market, it can help the company to start generating strategies for revitalization (Business Horizons, 2009).

5.1. Is the Brand Worth Reviving?

According Prachi M (2019), a brand revitalization is a transformational strategy which companies aim an overall business growth.

The following will give numerous reasons why is it necessary to a brand to be revived:

Globalization: Before marketing the goods in foreign markets, the organization must revitalize the name to make it globally adaptable.

Technology: As technology advances, businesses may continue to upgrade their brand and merchandise regularly.

Competition: Brand revitalization will help crack stereotypes and draw the target demographic into a competitive environment.

Reputation: A brand resurrection is needed to address particular problems that jeopardize the company's goodwill or agitate staff or customers. Rationalization is an effective method for dealing with issues such as product complexity, cost inefficiency, customer attrition, and profit declines.

Pertinence: When a business no longer meets the needs of its customers and has a tendency to become outdated for them, brand revival becomes essential.

Expansion: The group has to revitalize its image to meet the needs of a broader corporation while transforming its operations.

Legal Obligations: Dealing with particular trademark issues, such as two or more brands having similar titles, trademarks, or packaging designs, is critical.

Mergers and Acquisitions: A corporate takeover necessitates reorganization and rebranding in order to satisfy the firms' current customers. Furthermore, the purchasing firm, which is a leading competitor, revitalizes the target company's name in order to gain a greater market share.

Conclusion

Marketing can throw something in our face at vital moments in our life. Goods are the things individuals buy, but marketing gets them to buy it. A brand can in fact last forever and it has been proven. It takes a quality product and an intelligent marketing team. With that being said the best stay forever. All industries have the power forces that have been there for quite some time. Many brands in today's market have been labeled as "ghost brands" since they were once popular but are now practically non-existent (Sunil, 2018). Companies are constantly looking to revitalize dying or dead brands in their portfolio, given the high cost of introducing new brands. Food industries have McDonald's or Wendy's. Clothing industries have Nike and Under Armour. There are many brands that will last a long time and this has been shown in the past. Thus, managers must be aware of the signs of brand decline, such as issues with brand knowledge, differentiation, and customer reaction. We propose that most brands with high levels of popularity or a strong brand reputation are candidates for revival using a brand equity system. Moreover, in this research, we've included several tips that can assist managers in assessing and revitalizing their valuable brands. The different phases of a brand life cycle theory discussed above shows that few brands can survive forever. The change could be attributed to the changing consumer perspectives and the emergence of substitutes or other innovative products.

The researchers believed that a brand should never become obsolete. Branding and marketing alike necessitate a well-thought-out process that promotes transparency and excellence in order to propel the brand forward. Creating a strong brand is a difficult job that must be carefully prepared, strategized, and executed (BusinessBlogs, 2020), but having a healthy brand builds deep relationships with consumers, and has their hand on the pulse of what the market needs and wants. With longevity comes the ability to set products and ideas not around what the consumer wants today, but rather match what they wanted yesterday with what they will want tomorrow. Ultimately, for a brand to remain relevant across generations means that a comprehensive team committed to excellence has worked with a superior product or service over time. Brands that fail to remain competitive either lack one of the key elements discussed, or are simply a fading trend. Brands that succeed have found a way to make it work. Whether it is giving the choice to customers, or just creating a popular and desirable product like Coca-Cola, successful brands stand the test of time because they demonstrate the ability to set them apart and do what it takes to succeed.

In conclusion, if the brand has the right driver behind the wheel there is no reason for it to ever become obsolete. We believe also that the key thing that they should accomplish is changing with the times. Marketers have to listen to their audiences. Companies that attempt to push their message no matter what the audience fail. It takes time and effort to speak to the right crowd. All of the elite companies have had to change throughout their long lives to stay open. Marketers need to research on how to make their brands last forever.