The Power of Evolution: 5 Brands That Failed Because They Refused To Evolve

Change is a good thing, right? Most times it does not feel like it. Change is uncomfortable and uncertain, especially in the business world. Brands evolve and grow, due to innovations or competition. Brands also fail due to their inability to adapt and change. The ability to evolve as a business is essential to stay alive. 

Many Fortune 500 companies went down and under in recent years. Some others still remain but are mostly forgotten and are less likely to turn a profit. Here are 5 brands that did not evolve and as such, failed. 

1. Polaroid

Polaroid beat competitors and charmed customers into buying its instant film cameras. Everything changed with the arrival of digital cameras. 

In a short while, they were unable to compete with these new cameras. Polaroid did not feel that the looming threat of digital cameras was a danger to their company. Sadly, they declared bankruptcy in 2001 and was acquired by a shareholder that holds a large share of the Impossible Project.

2. Borders 

Founded by two brothers in university, Borders served the needs of book and music lovers across the world. Its many locations did nothing to help its mounting debt. Borders had to close most of them down and sell its customer loyalty list to Barnes & Nobles.

Borders did not fold up because it did not try to change but because of how it tried to do so. Evolving as a brand is not always jumping on the popular trend but finding what works for your business. Solving debt issues and closing down some stores that were costing them money might have gone a long way instead of entering into e-readership so fast.

3. Yahoo 

Years ago, Yahoo offered answers to the queries of the users on its search engine. But now, it is at the bottom of the search engine list. Yahoo made a series of mistakes that still haunts it today.

They started out by focusing on media. This was not a bad decision in itself. The problem was that they no longer paid attention to customer trends and improving user experience. Yahoo also missed out on buying two big companies, Google and Facebook. Taking a few more risks may not have hurt them.

4. BlackBerry

Blackberry smartphones and tablets was a huge success with their arched keyboard. While other companies were focusing on a larger touchscreen display, BlackBerry concentrated on keeping their designs the same way. They had to move out of the smartphone business and made plans about to move into software business instead. 

5. Sears

You could get anything you wanted from this general store. But the changing tastes of customers and the rise of discount stores like Walmart have ended its successful years. Sears troubles started when they did not realize that discount stores were competition, they also had issues going digital. Customer experience has worsened with time as well as staff pay and hours and Sears is losing money every day as fewer people walk in to make purchases.