I was reading a discussion on Soflow.com (registration required) about brands in decline and it reminded me of the Dirty Harry film where celebrities keep getting asassinated and Harry traces it back to a dead pool competiton run by a couple of film industry insiders.What was interesting was that all the brands named were American , there was no European brands touched by the list.
Weird or these brands are not seen to count by the dozens of marketers on the list?
Danone, Cadburys or McCains could be considered big food too. Unilever has been decimating its brands and selling off many of its iconic businesses in order to provide shareholder value at the expense of the longer term.
Brands marked for death by the group included:
- McDonalds - due to its obesity credentials
- Ford Motor Company - because its business is taking a beating
- General Motors - for performing even worse than Ford
- Marlboro - what's the point of having a brand that you can't advertise
- KFC - greasy licking fingers make fat kids and associations with bird flu
- AT&T - old school telco not fairing too well in a new school world
- Kodak - digital keeps trumping the analogue world
- Budweiser - health concerns and it isn't a particularly good beer
- The Gap - finger is off the pulse of young people
- Coca-Cola - big food concerns
- NBA (National Basketball Assoc.) - Player conduct, no Michael Jordan
- Blockbuster - as technology changes the movie rental model away from bricks-and-mortar stores
- Virgin - because Branson is the brand
- H-P - because it has been lost in the wilderness for such a long, long time
