Brands are Mortal. They die.
One of the natural laws of branding is that brands don’t live forever. They grow, they shrink, they evolve, and sometimes, they die. The recent collapse of CompUSA should be a reminder of this.
Today, I mourn two of our more recent deceased, Polaroid and HD-DVD.
I grew up with Polaroid. Snapping instant photos was a great way to spice up a school project or just to occupy a Saturday afternoon. Those white-framed, desaturated photos fill our family albums. But the company announced that they are going to phase out the film and cameras in about a year. So stock up now, because these will be vintage-chic almost overnight. Obviously, Polaroid died a slow death at the hands of the digital camera revolution, and the emergence of high-quality, quick-turnaround photo shops before that. It’s a shame from a nostalgia point of view, but in all practical manners, Polaroid is a dinosaur.
HD-DVD is a more dramatic situation. In this case, HD-DVD, a Toshiba property, lost a very public and very intense battle with Sony’s Blu-Ray format. For about two years, the techie public and home theatre fanatics have been waiting for a format to emerge as the winner, and thus end the ridiculous re-enactment of the VHS vs Beta war of the late 70s. But today it was officially announced that no more HD-DVD players will be shipped. It’s really a long story so do some research if you’re that interested.
We mustn’t mourn when brands die, because invariably something new and more exciting will take its place. What will be the next Polaroid? The next Kodak? The next Wal-Mart? Wait and see.
(I wonder if any of these dead brands will return to haunt us in a Jacob Marley sort of way, that would be cool.)
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// 07 January 2010, 13:45
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