How brands die

Please see this post from 24/7 Wall Street. As shown by the brands that have fallen hardest in the past decade, there are two ways that brands die:

1) They fail to compete (Kodak, Sony Ericsson). This isn't just a tech phenomenon (see: Kleenex), but in tech you can see Darwin at work. Generally, they lost ground on innovation more than price competition; an interesting point to consider when you consider how much you should be spending on market research.

2) They make their customers mad. The pharma and financial services brands on this list burned their customers and earned their fates. For example, I remember how arrogant Citi's senior execs were back in the late eighties--also crude and rude to work with, by the way.

You can get away with those mistakes for short periods of time, but not forever. Me too marketing strategies, blindness to consumer perception, and an arrogant approach to your market are all signs that you're in trouble.

Ideally, it's the job of everyone who works at a company to seek and nurture insight about customers and markets. Why? Insight has two roles: to help you understand the people you are serving with your products, and to help you know when you need to change your approach to your marketplace. Your culture will remain attuned to your market only if you make customer insight a basic skill.