The comments in the furniture thread about brand names that no longer live up to their promise and history set me wondering: which brands are these, and who has been responsible for their decline? (This is Non-motoring, remember.) And are there any that have recovered from this treatment?
I can think of a couple from the audio world:
Bang & Olufsen declined into making novelty phones and the like under the influence of Philips but seems to have returned to form recently. I really fancy the A2 Bluetooth speaker to take with me on my travels. Company still seems chronically short of cash, though.
Wharfedale the name that used to be first on every budget buyer's list suffered the indignity of becoming the house brand of Argos but is now back in the speaker business. Oddly, the company website makes no mention of the Argos years.
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I've just sold an excellent Wharfedale (sorry motoring link) car CD player with Bluetooth/SD/AUX etc on eBay. I only paid £50 four years from Argos and somebody bought for £40 off me!
I wasn't aware of Wharfedale apart from the Argos link. The Aldi/Lidl brands, Medion, Tevion and Silvercrest seem decent enough for the money and warranty.
B&O just seem like BOSE to me, overpriced for what they are for most people and why you need them as a selling point in a car.
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Bush radio and Alba now Argos brands.
Bush had a factory at Chiswick just near th eA4 flyover
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Wharfedale was never out of business, it is owned by IAG now, they did sublicence their brand to Argos for a few years, we had one of their TVs until the Samsung tube died on it.
They now make some very good budget speakers and even some high end ones although the high end ones struggle to sell. At the time the owners IAG didn't seem that bothered about the Wharfedale brand preferring to focus on Mission but then Mission some how went out of fashion and they relaunched the Wharfedale by offering speakers that were amazing value for money.
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I've got a first edition here of 'Audio', the book by Gilbert Briggs - Mr Wharfedale. Probably worth more than the speakers now.
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Off the top of my head Polariod, Blaupunkt, Grundig; all now applied to random Chinese/Turkish electronics products.
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>> Off the top of my head Blaupunkt, Grundig; all now applied to random Chinese/Turkish
>> electronics products.
>>
I'll second that. Grundig used to make fantastic radios, and Blaupunkt used to be part of the respected Bosch group. Now their names appear on various low-rent cheap tat in Sainsburys, etc.
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The old Grundig was associated, quite rightly, with good sound and their radios, tvs, and tape recorders all sounded better than devices of the same physical dimensions made by others. Their circuit designs were good as well with fewer active devices and partly as a result, had a good name for reliability.
They also were the first manufacturer I saw to offer a radio that could connect to the AC mains, whatever the voltage or frequency (110 to 240 volts, 50 or 60 Hz). You would not do it the way they did today, but it worked well.
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>>>Wharfedale was never out of business... They now make some very good budget speakers and even some high end ones although the high end ones struggle to sell... they relaunched the Wharfedale by offering speakers that were amazing value for money.
Yes hi-fi is a fickle business and tightly meshed to an incestuous relationship with the magazine reviews Some modern Wharfedale speakers do indeed get good reviews but pop the drivers out to check build quality and its very pared down to a minimum... sad after some of their substantial earlier models. They made some damn good mid/high end speakers in the mid 80s but even they went largely unnoticed.
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They do make fantastic value for money speakers though, my 9.1s are excellent, have a really nice treble and the bass is speedy. They cost £100 and for that price they are brilliant. I would not have paid the RRP of £200 for them though.
And while we are at it Cambridge Audio is another brand used to make some high end stuff, then bought out by Richersounds and they made cheap but good value products, now they are trying to go high end again. I would say CA is now a budget mid end brand or a high end budget brand.
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I would say CA is now a budget mid end brand or a high end budget brand.
I'd put it more at the higher-mid-budget end of the upper-low mainstream.
};---)
Still would like to try a Stream Magic 6v2, though. Strange to think that I've probably bought my last CD player.
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Brands don't have to be sold or licensed to be exploited. There was a cynical debasing of Cardhu by owner Diageo in 2002, when it was changed from a single malt to a "vatted" or blended malt.
At the time it was the biggest selling single malt (mainly as a result of its popularity in Spain, Greece, Portugal and France) and presumably couldn't keep up with demand, so other whiskies were added.
I only picked up on this because I bought a bottle at the time and noticed that the label, although otherwise identical to the old one, now read "pure malt" instead of "single malt". Whether it tasted much different I am unable to say, but that isn't really the point.
There was a backlash from customers and Cardhu lost its position as the biggest seller in 2003. I do hope somebody got fired for that, and that it was the right person. Cardhu reverted to selling single malt in 2004.
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>> Brands don't have to be sold or licensed to be exploited. There was a cynical
>> debasing of Cardhu by owner Diageo in 2002, when it was changed from a single
>> malt to a "vatted" or blended malt.
>>
I was just thinking about that variation on the theme; I'm pretty sure I've seen lower end TVs and / or PVRs from Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi to name but three labelled 'made in Turkey', so most likely churned out by Vestel.
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Viz the recent changes to the Creme Egg.
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>> Suzuki.
And while we're about it, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Daimler, Jaguar...
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Gordons Gin 40% to 37.5% proof. Lost my custom for ever.
Tesco: premium pricing (even today) for carp service.
Hoover - where are they now?
B&Q - premium pricing - with their purchasing power they should be like Walmart.
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>> Viz the recent changes to the Creme Egg.
>>
I've just discovered that out of date Mars Bars are much nicer than fresh ones. Store for several months in a cool place and the chocolate acquires its old-fashioned crunchiness, and the filling seems tastier and creamier.
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Anyone tried an after eight mint lately? The last box tasted disgusting.
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>> Anyone tried an after eight mint lately? The last box tasted disgusting.
You're supposed to eat the contents, not the box.
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Kodak - -after entering bankruptcy protection in 2012, they now concentrate on the corporate digital imaging market.
All the cameras, etc you now see are manufactured by another company who are licensed to use the Kodak name.
Last edited by: Auristocrat on Mon 2 Feb 15 at 15:20
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Mattesons smoked pork sausage had been a favourite lunch for years, Chopped up in tomato soup. I haven't had this simple recipe for a few months so I bought one when I was in Asda last week.
It is now a pathetic little thing. About 3/4 the size of the original......no doubt higher priced though.
Looked like a big dogs pinkle !
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>> Kodak - -after entering bankruptcy protection in 2012, they now concentrate on the corporate digital
>> imaging market.
>> All the cameras, etc you now see are manufactured by another company who are licensed
>> to use the Kodak name.
In this case you are lucky anything survived, Could have gone the way of Pan Am and completely disappeared
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>>Could have gone the way of Pan Am and completely disappeared
>>
Sad to see such a name go. Info from Wiki....
The Pan Am brand has been resurrected six times after 1991, but the reincarnations were related to the original Pan Am in name only.
Also remembered for
"Pan American (or Pan Am) Smile." Named after the greeting stewardesses supposedly gave to passengers. It consists of a perfunctory mouth movement without the activity of facial muscles around the eyes that characterizes a genuine smile.
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>> Sad to see such a name go. Info from Wiki....
Early plane spotter memory of seeing their machines at LHR and listening to transatlantic flights working their way north POL>DCS>TLA in the days of procedural ATC. Cannot remember the previous waypoint south of POL, possibly Millbrook?.
Radio Callsign was 'Clipper', also used as prefix for each aircraft's name.
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Dyson is a brand that's lost it's mojo. They used to be reliable, now they only seem to last a few years.
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Mass production must be a delicate balance between durability, sales, and reputation.
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Brands come and brands go. Try to avoid too much nostalgia for the past. Best enjoy what's around at the moment.
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...and pleasing investors. If you have them, they demand growth; it's not enough to keep a sound business ticking over consistently from year to year. That means new products, new markets or both. Dyson has had to play this game, possibly to the detriment of its product line.
Dualit, another product-led company, has remained in the hands of its founding family, which has shielded it from some of these forces - although even that has introduced cheaper lines to exploit the name.
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Oakley unfortunately, I have to wear sunglasses nearly all year round and my early ones were great, made in the US and well made, I lost my last pair while on holiday and when I went to replace them found that almost all of them (including the expensive metal ones) are now made in China. They used to have the Made in USA moulded into the arms but now the word China is hidden under the rubber ear pieces.
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Shimano.
Used to be second best to Sun Tour but not so good now......
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"Shimano."
I watched a fascinating tv programme a couple of years ago when an enthusiast was building his dream bike from the finest components in the world - travelling to all the various factories to see the parts being built. ISTR his 'ultimate' gears were Campagnola.
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I've some quite rare bits of Campagnolo manufacture. Touring cycle has a Campagnolo Rallye rear mech and 40 spoke Record hubs. One of the few makes where it was possible to get spares and repair stuff. Upright trike is also Campagnolo equipped but the bits are more modern and less pretty!
Yes you did/do rather pay for the name, but if one shopped at Whiskers of Geoffs Oak, the stuff was available at normalish prices, ie a huge discount on list.
Last edited by: Slidingpillar on Tue 3 Feb 15 at 09:40
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>> I watched a fascinating tv programme a couple of years ago when an enthusiast was
>> building his dream bike from the finest components in the world - travelling to all
>> the various factories to see the parts being built. ISTR his 'ultimate' gears were Campagnola.
>>
If I recall correctly, Campag were the only people who wouldn't let him go inside the actual factory!
Shimano every time, for me.
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I'm using Shimano at the moment because it came on the bike I bought when I returned to cycling after a two year break. I much prefer Campag, the gearshift is more precise and every component is rebuildable with readily available spares. I have never had a Campag part fail, can't say the same about the Jap stuff.
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"If I recall correctly, Campag were the only people who wouldn't let him go inside the actual factory!"
Yes, that's right, though I can't remember if he personally wasn't allowed inside, or if it was 'recording' equipment that wasn't allowed inside. I don't think it was done in an atmosphere of 'unfriendliness', more out of a genuine concern than their rivals (principally Shimano) might see their production methods. After visiting them, one of the Campag senior guys, maybe the CEO, accompanied him out on a ride through the Italian countryside.
I bought my bikes 'of the peg' and both are equipped with Shimano; TBH, I wouldn't know if they were any different to anything else.
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>
>> Radio Callsign was 'Clipper', also used as prefix for each aircraft's name.
>>
Probably pre-dating that, George Formby's song ' Thanks Mr Roosevelt ' opens with the lines
" John Bull has written a message,
and sent it off by Clipper plane today. "
Probably 1941 ish.
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The Kodak factory at Morley, Leeds, closes this year. A pal of mine ( nom de plume Kodak, surprisingly) decided to leave in the first tranche of redundancies late last year. Lucky lad got himself a good job, closer to home, within weeks. Redundancies in excess of 200 I believe, with production moving to Germany.
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Diminished brands - nice but dim
