Are all brands destined to die? Is the way we manage and think about them destined to make them eventually die, and new ones to emerge?

In another posting I spoke about how success can lead directly to failure, as people become more and more cautious and reluctant to diverge from something that succeeded in the past - especially if that was a big success.

More recently, I have been thinking more and more about that. But taking a slightly different stand and wondering if it is almost inherent to human nature and been the fundamental thing that allows and enables innovation, and new ways to emerge and succeed. In fact, the very fact that successful people and brands then stick to the formula that worked for them at first is actually important... as it enables new and different models and brands and business models to emerge.

I remember going to a conference arranged by work in Los Angeles. It was one of those all signing all dancing things that no-one seems to run anymore as seen to be showing too much excess, and at it they had all these workshops we rotated around. In one of them (that has always stuck in my mind) the consultants who were manning it had a very simple (but dramatic) story.

They had 2 large boards. And that was all.

On one board they had a list of the top 5 brands from 50, 40, 30, 20 and 10 years ago.

On another they had the largest companies listed on the stock exchange around sometime after the big crash in 1929 and then today.

On the brand board it was frightening to see that brands just disappeared and disappeared and almost none had survived a very long time. In many cases as new forms and ways of doing things had come along and the old brands had never evolved from the category or form and died.

On the company board it was the same, with many industries merging and others emerging.

It was also startling to how even in recent times so many brands and companies that I knew and had grown up with had gone, and I had not really thought about it.

It was a striking and startling message.

And yet we all go to work and keep doing what we do and keep trying the old ways and forms that our bosses measure us on, as that is the model they know and understand.

But is that the nature of the world? By being slow to change, being slow to embrace new things it allows younger, more nimble, and new visionaries to experiment and flourish and take over markets. Until they too suffer the same disease.

Are we all only destined to have our day. Our 15 minutes of fame and time..