By Madhusudan Bhavaraju

Campa Cola, a soft drink brand from the 1980s now owned by Reliance, is giving Coke and Pepsi a run for their money. Onida of “Neighbour’s Envy, Owners Pride” is apparently planning a big comeback. Whereas “Chal Meri Luna” or “Gold Spot — The Zing Thing” are just memories of a past era.

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This begs the question: Why do brands die or fade away? The answer is not always obvious. Brands rarely die because people stopped liking them. They die because the world that made them relevant changes or even disappears completely.

The world of business and brands is littered with names that evoke a certain memory and nostalgia, but the brands themselves are no longer there or are shadows of their past glory. Regulations, technology, economics or culture can kill brands. There are some fascinating examples of this in India.

Prosperity, culture, technology — some Brands Lose Out

The Luna story is all about economic change. There was a time when it was India’s multi-purpose two-wheeler — from the local businessman carrying his goods to a family of four rushing to work or school.

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This made enormous sense in India, where incomes were lower, and cars were not easy to buy, and Luna solved the problem of personal mobility inexpensively. As the Indian economy improved, more people could afford motorcycles or cars. Luna’s original value proposition was lost.

Dalda represents a different kind of decline. Vanaspati once stood for affordability and convenience, and it may be hard for us today to believe it also stood for a modern way of cooking. Soon, nutritional science evolved, consumers became suspicious of hydrogenated fats, and the cultural setting of the product changed. What once was a practical cooking fat became plain unhealthy.

BPL, Videocon, Solidaire and Onida were consumer electronics giants in India at one time and commanded huge market share. But global supply chains, Korean brands, falling electronics prices and rapidly evolving technology changed that competitive structure. I really hope Onida makes a comeback, but the technology gap between an LG or a Samsung and Onida will take time to bridge.

Then there is the Ambassador, the classic case study of technological change. For years it represented the Indian automobile, status, power and bureaucracy. Then came the upstart Maruti, and eventually global car makers with better technology, reliability and efficiency. Hindustan Motors kept chugging away for some time but eventually struggled in this new competitive environment. The Premier Padmini story is very similar.

We have seen the technology change story play out brutally with global brands too. BlackBerry was an excellent phone for email, but phones stopped being a device for calls, emails or messages and became a pocket computer. Blockbuster is another example; people still watch movies at home — not with a CD or a cassette, but on a streaming app like Netflix.

Regulations can both create and destroy brands

Regulations can create an artificial ecosystem which collapses as soon as the regulations are lifted. The Ambassador might not have survived if not for India having a closed economy. The same is true for Gold Spot or a Citra. The soft drink brands of India in the 1970s and ’80s were a direct by-product of India not allowing Coke and Pepsi to operate. It was this gap in the market that was exploited, and once Coke and Pepsi entered India again, these brands quickly faded away.

There are, of course, exceptions. We started with Campa Cola. It was a defunct brand that went the same way as Gold Spot or Citra until Reliance took over. There was some brand equity even after decades of decline, which Reliance identified and used to enter the soft beverages market in India.

Thums Up and Limca survived. My theory, albeit in hindsight, is that these two beverages were unique. Thums Up, with its extra punchy taste and cult following, made it difficult for Coca-Cola to drop the brand. Limca is a unique cloudy lemon drink unlike the clear lemon drinks such as Sprite or 7 UP.

These exceptions may just be one-offs. Nostalgia alone is not enough, though; both Campa Cola and Onida need a strong reason to exist today in the 2020s.

Not all brands die; some brands evolve and move to new categories. Kinetic Motors, the makers of Luna, launched the Kinetic Honda in the 1980s, which was a very popular two-wheeler. The Kinetic Honda was more powerful, had storage and an electric starter, which was an evolution from the very basic Luna. Bajaj and TVS moved to more lucrative segments like motorcycles.

The mistake successful brands make is assuming that yesterday’s success proves something permanent about the brand. Often it only proves something about that moment in time. Consumers change, technologies change, regulations change, and aspirations change. The brand that survives is not necessarily the strongest. It is the one that keeps finding a reason to be relevant as the world around it changes.

The biggest competitor to a successful brand may not be another company or a new product or technology – it may simply be the passing of time.

The writer is Founder – The Brand Ignition Co