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Behind every successful corporate brand, there is a powerful logo design. But not every logo design has the power to build a famous brand. Although it takes years of painstaking efforts for corporations to erect a memorable identity, it requires an instant for them to get forgotten. In this day and age, brands and identities are fast emerging. Few manage to survive the competition, while others vanish into thin air.
Why are brands forgotten?
There is no single factor behind the demise of famous corporate brands. Some brands are gradually forgotten while others mysteriously vanish into thin air. There can be numerous reasons as to why a stable brand is forgotten.
- • They lose the race and are overtaken by emerging brands.
- • They don’t live up to their expectations any longer.
- • Some brands witness a change of identity either through a merger or acquisition.
- • Some brands are inexplicably taken out from the market.
- • The parent company eventually gets bankrupt, causing the brand to be recalled.
Here are some of the brands with memorable corporate logos, which were once the darling of their respective industries, but are now virtually extinct from the marketplace.
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1. Commodore:
Commodore International was the manufacturer of the most popular computers in the 80’s. Famous for its Commodore64, this brand eventually lost out to IBM-compatible PCs. Some of us might remember Commodore and its ribbon shaped logo from their childhoods, watching it disposed off in the attic. The firm filed for bankruptcy in 1994, but revived in 2005 through different mergers. But the name Commodore was nowhere to be found. |
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2. Atari:
Atari, the game our parents loved playing, was the pioneer of home video game systems. But sadly this brand faded away with the arrival of high graphic computer game systems like Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox. Although Atari is still striving to penetrate the computer gaming market, it still is a distant brand. |
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3. Dr.Pepper:
Dr.Pepper, a soft drink created in 1880s, is known for its exclusive taste. While there are many theories as to how the name Dr.Pepper actually evolved, the logo design also went several changes. Initially the design included the fullstop (period) after "Dr", but this was later discarded for a more stylish look in the 1950s. Dr Pepper’s logo was redesigned with a slanted text. Although CEO of Dr.Pepper claimed “It’s not an apple, it’s not an orange, it’s not a strawberry, it’s not a root beer, it’s not even a cola”, but the truth is…it’s not popular anymore. |
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4. AltaVista:
AltaVista was a search engine known popularly as a “research engine”. It was developed in 1995 and later became a part of Yahoo! AltaVista was the most extensive search engine but eventually lost out to Google. Although it still works under Yahoo, it is a forgotten brand itself. |
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5. Old Spice:
Although being a part of P&G, Old spice is one brand that is fast vanishing out of sight. Popularly known for its men’s aftershave and deodorants, Old Spice was the creation of Shulton Company before being acquired by P&G in 1990. The Old spice logo has always depicted a sailing ship as its trademark. The original ships used in the logo design were Grand Turk and the Friendship. But this aging brand has nearly vanished from the market under immense competition from younger brands like AXE.
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There are several brands that we loved using as kids but have now disappeared. I would like you to share those brands and memorable logos that you are familiar with but don’t find them anymore.
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April 30th, 2010 at 6:14 am
They’ll come back in fashion on the front of retro T-shirts! I have an Atari T-shirt in the wardrobe (circa: last year).
May 23rd, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Well i admire the effort that is made in this analysis but i have to say that Dr Peppers logo is still going strong. You state that Dr Pepper is not popular anymore and i have to disagree, Dr Pepper in the southern US is very popular. Just beause in New York or in California it is not seen does not mean its not popular.
August 3rd, 2010 at 2:48 pm
[...] months prior in an article on Logo Guru entitled, “The saga of forgotten brands and their logo designs,” Sam Anderson lists Old [...]