Discussion Post: Brand Relevance
Many companies go to great lengths to ensure that products and services they offer meet customers’ demand specifications in order to maintain trust and loyalty. This is important due to the dynamic nature of customer’s preferences and stiff competition from rivals. As a result, many businesses struggle to stay relevant and, therefore, employ different strategies to ensure that their products and services meet market needs and established credibility while at the same time maintaining a competitive advantage for customers who matter to their business (Aaker, 2010). However, some companies have not been successful in this front and have ultimately lost to their competitors as far as long-term brand relevance is concerned.
One example of brands that have lost their relevance in recent times is the Kodak Company, which was once a dominant player in photography. With the fast-changing pace of technology and the advent of smartphones, people all over the world nowadays rely on their smartphones, tablets, and digital cameras as compared to the film-based business model of Kodak. Although they have tried to migrate to digital photography, this has been slow and has not been entirely successful mainly because of failure by the top management to make the right strategic choices (Melvin, 2018). The company was caught off-guard in a world of rapidly changing technology, and this greatly affected its presence in the photograph industry and somehow killed its brand completely. This has inadvertently led to Kodak losing its market dominance in photography in recent years, with sales and profits plummeting to records low. Consequently, the fall in sales and the dwindling revenues made the company lose its leadership role in the photography industry to filing for bankruptcy in the year 2012. Even though they came out of the bankruptcy and are still in business today, they still struggle, and it will be an over hill task to reclaim their lost glory
References
Aaker, D.A. (2010). Brand relevance: Making competitors irrelevant. John Wiley & Sons.
Melvin, W. S. (2018).Anatomy of change: a Kodak moment.Surgery, 163(3), 485-487