- It has been proven beyond doubt that a trademark of a particular product not only acts as a significant symbol for establishing the business house promoting it, but also plays a critical role in marketing the product to achieve intended objectives/reach the target audience envisaged. Look at any established big business houses/conglomerates/industry leaders and the ilk: every entity has assiduously ensured that sufficient resources/time/attention are devoted to strengthening the trademark and branding to build the business. Mere mention of the trademark would be sufficient to relate to a very successful business house backing the product, showcasing how familiarity is a crucial cog in establishing the name in the competitive world.
PC: ABC News
- And there are well-known business houses that have simply let go of some of the most well-known trademarks that have been built assiduously over the decades. Yes, businesses die, but brands don’t is the accepted maxim. Mind you, every abandoned trademark is a key to customers’ hearts and wallets. Let’s look at how some of the established brands have played out in the recent past. As we know, Elon Musk paid $44bn for Twitter and made it ‘X’, thinking it’s a cool name. But the rest of us have struggled to use it as a verb ever since. Tweeting sounds good rather than exing. This old habit must die if a startup called ‘Operation Bluebird’ gets its way. It has now laid claim to the trademarks ‘Twitter’ and ‘tweet’ for its social media platform, Twitter.
PC: The Business Journals
- Arguing that X Corp abandoned them. If Musk resists, it will be an acknowledgement of the old name’s worth. If he doesn’t, he’ll be throwing away something of significant value, far more than the $35,000 Twitter HQ’s bird logo sold in March. But he won’t be the first to let a gem slip through the cracks. Recollect how in 1993, P&G abandoned its White Cloud toilet paper trademark, despite the strong brand value it had built over 35 years. Soon, the brand – revived by a third party – returned to Walmart shelves as a rival to P&G’s products. Around the same time, Brim Coffee, a household name in the US, was shut down. Fifteen years later, a survey found 92% of respondents over the age of 25 remembered it. It was pure gold as a brand, burnished with nostalgia.
PC: VICE
- Back home, just like Campa, a 1970s-80s cola, and Jawa/Yezdi motorcycles last made in 1996, got a warm welcome from Gen-Xers here. Experts say the failure of a business does not mean the end of its trademarks. Kodak crashed, but people didn’t forget it. So, when a Hong Kong-based firm recently launched a Kodak brand film camera, photography circles were agog. Likewise, a newly launched Minolta camera with no connection to the old Minolta has been making waves. Clearly, brands are assets that should be treasured. We are suckers for nostalgia, old, discontinued brands, which can be keys to customers’ hearts and wallets. Thus, as businesses go about house cleaning, they should sift through the trash cans once to ensure no trademarks are thrown away.
