Why Some Brands Last Forever

Are the products superior with differentiation strategies that stand the test of time?

Are customers super loyal?

Do we as consumers fail to realize the benefit of other options?

There are a million questions as to why some brands are built to last "forever" and why others simply flop. Class discussion today continued to explore benefits associated with segmentation. Part of the discussion evolved into the importance of brands. With all of the choice available to customers today strong branding is essential. But seriously... why are some brands successful and others are just not?

Let's look at a simple example of table salt. In all reality most of us could agree that salt is salt no matter what brand it is. I'm not implying that table salt and sea salt are the same (because trust me they most definitely are not), but salt- just regular, plain, shake it out on your french fry salt is the same. Yet, most of us have a brand preference or are more familiar with certain salt brands over others why?

It is interesting to think about. Why is it that Morton salt is so iconic? Why have car brands like Volvo and BMW been around for so long? If we all knew the answer to that "secret" there would probably be a lot more power brands in the world.

I think that a lot of branding success comes down to strong segmentation from the start. A lot of these brands have clearly evolved from their start to where they currently are now, but I think it is important to note that many power brands understood their customer from the beginning.