Doomed brands

Last week an article on Huffingtonpost.com, which listed brands predicted to disappear in coming year, got me thinking.

Number 10 on the list is Finnish company Nokia. In 2009 Nokia was number five on the Interbrand Top Global Brands list, which is published each year in Businessweek. Last year it was number eight – the first non-US company on the list, which made it all the more surprising the company made it onto the doomed brands list.

Nokia has a long history and legacy of successfully reinventing itself in the past. Founded in 1865, it moved from being a paper maker and electricity producer to manufacturing electronics, then eventually into telecommunications. You could say reinventing itself was its core business!

So how does a company that has survived for 146 years suddenly end up here?

I’m not sure there is an easy answer. The company had always maintained some diversity in its businesses and over time that has given way to a more singular focus. That’s fine, of course, until the thing you are focused on gets superseded, resulting in a widespread switch to smartphones and integrated delivery platforms.

Other well-known brands have flirted with extinction for similar reasons – Xerox and Kodak are two memorable examples. If customers stop buying what you are selling, you have a problem – no matter how well you keep your promises.

Brands and business are closely tied. When analysts predict the end of Nokia’s brand, what they are really predicting is that the company will become unviable as a stand-alone entity, and will probably get bought by a larger player for its 22% global market share of mobile handsets. You really can’t separate the two.

There isn’t a business without a brand and there is no brand without a business. They are the same entity. That’s why it doesn’t work to talk about brand as marketing, or the de facto “face” of the business – brand goes much deeper than that.

If you are a business being rapidly overtaken by a shifting environment, it’s time to think about what your core business really is. Nokia seems to have forgotten that reinvention and adaption have been in the DNA of the business since 1865, and that is probably why it is on the endangered list.

Here’s the rub. Your brand and your business have three elements. Purpose and values get lots of space on my blog and in business books, but a third element – positioning – keeps you in step with the current environment. Positioning – the what, how, where and who – drives the principles and practices of the business and brand. That can, and should, change over time.

In other words, if you are still doing the same thing you were doing 10 years ago in exactly the same way, your days may well be numbered! Food for thought indeed.
Next week I will talk more about how positioning is the key to keeping your brand current.

Michel is an independent brand adviser and advocate. Through her work with Brandology in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations make promises they can keep and keep the promises they make, with a strong, sustainable brand as the result. She also publishes the brand leadership blog Brand Alignment. You can follow Michel on Twitter @michelhogan