Damaged Brands

Damaged brands are one that loses its value because it is no longer a unique label. Many factors contribute to this disaster, but most of them are caused by mass production, excessive advertisement, and plagiarsm. Brands that are identified as ‘damaged’ often doesn’t see an immediate sales drop, however, in a long term they are losing their mojo. It is a slow but eroding process.

Nike is a prime example of damaged brand. It used to be a leading brand for sporting fashion thanks to it’s agressive advertising and the cool ‘tick’ logo, but that was last century, now we see the tick everywhere. Nike’s products are no longer special, it’s just a sporting goods, and nothing else. Nike also suffers a colossal brand-loss due to colossal copycat products emerging from everywhere. Funnily enough, Nike’s copycat is almost as cheap as original Nike’s product.

Calvin Klein also falls into damaged brand category because we start seeing cK brands almost everywhere. Established in 1968, Calvin Klein used to be an exclusive yet edgy fashion piece, but again that was last century. Now ordinary people wears cK tees everyday, regardless they are real or fake. Other high-end fashion brands that suffers from similar issues includes Versace and Louis Vuitton (bags). Also, while not exacly a fashion item, Hard Rock Cafe also suffers from damaged-brand issue.

“You’ve been to Tokyo’s branch of Hard Rock Cafe. So what? 68% chance they are fake, or you get that from somebody else.”

Interestingly, damaged-brand issue is not international product’s domain. Local brands, including Dagadu and Joger are seeing the symptoms of damaged-brand epidemic, mainly due to overproduction, copycat, and outadated theme. Hugo’s nightclub (they prefer to call it a cafe, but really, its a nightclub)—which reached it’s popularity in Jogja because its logo sticking in every clubber’s windshied—starting to sicken its target market when people start imitating its logo to ‘HaPe’s’ and ‘Bejo’s’.