Today’s 24/7 Wall Street has an interesting article on brands that they believe will disappear in the next year or two. This is of particular interest to me as I find the life and times of various brands to be fascinating. We’ve all seen a number of well-known brands disppear, from GTE to Oldsmobile, from Robinsons and May Company to CompUSA, from Tow7er Records to etoys.com. What brands do they think will disappear?
- XM Satellite Radio. Will disappear in the merger with Sirius. I give this one only a 50/50 chance of being likely, as the merger might not happen. If it does, I hope that Downstage Center (one of my favorite XM programs) doesn’t disappear.
- E*Trade. They think this will be bought by another company, due to home loan exposure. I give this a 75% chance.
- K-Mart. They predict this will be incorporated into Sears. I agree, but think the stores will be renamed into the “Sears Essentials” brand, which gives a more upscale image.
- Dodge. They predict this will be incorporated into Chrysler. I disagree, but only because they’ve already eliminated Plymouth as a brand. Instead, I think that the Dodge and Chrysler brands will be more clearly distinguished, with Dodge focusing on muscle cars and trucks, and Chrysler focusing on family and upscale cars. What is killing American brands is thinking that each nameplate needs to have a full spectrum of vehicles.
- Circuit City. Yup. They shot themselves in the foot when they opted to get rid of their skilled staff. Best Buy will end up the winner in this category.
- Gateway. Quite likely. They’ve been bought by Acer
, which also owns the Dell brand. Unless they can find a niche for the Gateway brand, it’s toast, because Dell has the better reputation.. Gateway also owns the E-Machines brand, and I can’t see Acer keeping all three brands. They will choose one for business, and one for consumer. E-Machines is the better known consumer brand, and the company is Acer, so Gateway gets squeezed out. - Vonage. Possibly. They’ve had so many legal issues, I see them resolving the problem by being absorbed into an existing telecom company.
- Old Navy. They believe this will be absorbed into the Gap. I disagree, and rate this as only 50/50. I think Old Navy will be retained, but will be moved to a more Outlet Store, quasi-Gap-outlet brand. This is especially true at we move into recession, and value and cost consciousness grows.
- Countrywide. Yup. They’ve been bought by BofA, which is known for swallowing things.
- Yahoo. They think Microsoft will win. They may, but I think Yahoo will just be slightly renamed into MS Yahoo!
- Motorola. They predict the handset operation will disappear. That’s possible, but I still see the company hanging around.
There are some brands they don’t list that I think will disappear. My list would also include:
- AOL. AOL has a lot of negative baggage, and I think at somepoint it will be brought and rebranded. However, there is the possibility that the name will remain, just like the name of some former Earthlink acquisitions have remained, as has Compuserve.
- Radio Shack. Tandy has had trouble for a long time, and I don’t think the brand has the positive reputation it needs to survive the recession.
- The CW. Well, this one should just die. But it won’t.
So what brands do you think will disappear in the next few years?
