{"id":679,"date":"2010-11-04T06:39:20","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T13:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=679"},"modified":"2010-11-04T06:39:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T13:39:20","slug":"death-of-a-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=679","title":{"rendered":"Death of a Brand"},"content":{"rendered":"

R.I.P. Pontiac<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 It has gone the way of the mullet.\u00a0 That was part of the problem.\u00a0 Think of one and you eerily begin to think of the other.<\/p>\n

The venerable brand<\/strong><\/a> that brought us the GTO, the TransAm, and many iconic V-8 muscle cars is quietly being put to rest.<\/p>\n

What happened?\u00a0 Seems to me that the Pontiac was the case of the non-adaptive brand.\u00a0 Think Studebaker<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Edsel<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Saturn <\/strong><\/a>(one of which I still own!).<\/p>\n

\"pontiacAdaptive brands change, morph, reconfigure and adjust to the times.\u00a0 They broaden their aperture and constantly develop new points of relevance.<\/p>\n

A good — should I say ‘classic? — example is Coca-Cola<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 A Coke bottle would feel just at home in a Frank deCapra movie as it would Mad Men or Jersey Shore.\u00a0 It has a palette of personalities, images, and experiences that is so vast it fits in every context, every emotion, every age.\u00a0 As one of its many taglines put it, “Coke is Life!”<\/p>\n

Then there are the brands that adapt in a more sudden even violent manner.\u00a0 Here are three I remember from my youth.\u00a0 (BTW, my youth was a very long time ago.)<\/p>\n

Mountain Dew<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Back then, Mountain Dew was the hillbilly 7-Up.\u00a0 It was tank tops, cut off jeans and a tire swing into an Arkansas mill pond on a hot summer day.\u00a0 It was syrupy with a funny yellow color.\u00a0 Most of all, it was cheap.<\/p>\n

Old Spice<\/strong>.<\/a> That was my father’s brand.\u00a0 Ironically (or iconically!) my Dad was a sailor, a Chief Petty Officer, WWII veteran and Pearl Harbor survivor.\u00a0 He was a mans man.\u00a0 He went to the barber shop monthly, shunned shaving creme (hot soapy water worked just fine) and was suspicious of cologne (Old Spice was an after shave).<\/p>\n

Cadillac<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Our German-Italian neighbor in New Orleans, Mr. Doescher, drove a Cadillac.\u00a0 Mr. Doescher was a devout Catholic.\u00a0 He was also the head of a longshoreman’s union with shadowy wealth that combined with strong middle-class, blue collar values.\u00a0 You could find him every Saturday in his t-shirt and boxers watering his lawn with a garden hose.<\/p>\n

That was then.\u00a0 Now is now.\u00a0 Today all three of these brands are edgy, hip, young and very, very current.\u00a0 They are X-games, retro-cool, hip-hop and — in the case of Cadillac — a dash of classic rock and roll.<\/p>\n

For Pontiac, something got lost in the transition from the Grand Prix to the Vibe.<\/p>\n

It stayed Smokey and the Bandit<\/strong><\/a> in a world of Glee <\/strong><\/a>and Dexter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rest In Peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R.I.P. Pontiac.\u00a0 It has gone the way of the mullet.\u00a0 That was part of the problem.\u00a0 Think of one and you eerily begin to think of the other. The venerable brand that brought us the GTO, the TransAm, and many iconic V-8 muscle cars is quietly being put to rest. What happened?\u00a0 Seems to me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,3],"tags":[151,87,153,91,93,69,92,89,90,88],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}