Famous Brands Disappear

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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List,

When checking the Baldwin stock quotes for any latest news, there was the 
following story about Baldwin and other famous brands either going out of 
business or falling perilously close to it.


Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin

BIZFEATURE-Some famous brands disappear as consumers change

By Kesha Green

  
CHICAGO, June 21 (Reuters) - Grandmother may have washed clothes in Oxydol 
detergent. Father drove an Oldsmobile car. Mother shopped at Montgomery Ward. 
Brother rode a Schwinn bicycle and sister practiced scales on a Baldwin 
piano. 

What do all these consumer icons of the idyllic American family have in 
common? 

They are brands that have been discontinued, gone bankrupt or come perilously 
close to extinction, demonstrating how the most popular products of days gone 
by can bite the dust if they fail to change with the times. 

General Motors Corp <<A HREF="aol://4785:GM">GM.N</A>> is phasing out the century-old Oldsmobile brand of 
luxury cars. Montgomery Ward, the once proud retailer, has gone out of 
business. Baldwin Piano and Organ Co. <<A HREF="aol://4785:BPAO">BPAO.O</A>> has filed for bankruptcy 
protection. Procter & Gamble <<A HREF="aol://4785:PG">PG.N</A>> sold Oxydol, which once was the 
top-selling brand of laundry detergent. And Schwinn/GT Co. <<A HREF="aol://4785:GTBX">GTBX.O</A>>, the 
maker of the first bicycle of generations of kids, was rescued from 
bankruptcy and is up for sale again. 

The message to companies tempted to sit on their laurels: even old brands 
must learn new tricks, marketing experts said. 

"The challenge with retailing is that often times, typically, a retail brand 
is hot for a number of years and consumers like to move on to another format 
or another brand offering," said Gwen Morrison, managing director at Frankel 
Brand Environments, a brand marketing agency. 

BECOMING "NOTHING SPECIAL" 

If image was everything, Oldsmobile luxury cars projected just that for more 
than half a century until the 1980s. 

Young American families would buy a Chevrolet, then a Pontiac, an Oldsmobile, 
a Buick, and eventually a Cadillac in the 1920s, said Jim Gillette, an auto 
analyst.   

"When you bought one (Oldsmobile) it was like an image that you had arrived," 
said Gillette.   

And for baby boomers of the 1970s, the first new car often was an Oldsmobile 
Cutlass Supreme, he said. 

But Japanese car imports hurt Oldsmobile sales in the 1980s. Then, GM started 
producing the Oldsmobile using the same platform as its other cars to help 
cut costs. 

"They ruined the ability of the consumer in the marketplace to differentiate 
one product from another," said Gillette. "Oldsmobile became nothing 
special." 

Oxydol laundry detergent dropped out of favor because it failed to move with 
the change from powdered laundry soap. Procter & Gamble Co.'s first detergent 
helped coin the term "soap opera" in the 1930s because of its advertisements 
during the popular "Ma Perkins" radio series. 

When the rest of the industry began producing liquid detergent instead of 
powder, P&G decided not to release a liquid version of Oxydol. By the 1990s, 
Oxydol had dropped off consumer radar and its powder detergent market share 
dropped to 0.3 percent compared to market-leading Tide at 39.4 percent. 

"P&G stopped marketing Oxydol in 1997. P&G decided Oxydol did not fit into 
its global corporate strategy," said a spokesperson for Redox Brands Inc, 
which bought the 75-year-old brand from P&G last June and is trying to test 
it at some Wal-Mart stores. 

ORDERING FROM CATALOGS 

In the case of Chicago-based Montgomery Ward, major strategic blunders and 
more focused competition contributed to the retailer's demise. 

First, Ward was slow to move from supplying customers who ordered from its 
catalogs, to opening retail stores. This allowed rival Sears, Roebuck and Co. 
to grab prime store locations. 

In the 1980s, the company couldn't decide between offering general or 
specialty merchandise, which allowed competitors such as Gap and Limited to 
attract young shoppers. 

Montgomery Ward, founded in 1872, attempted to reorganize under Chapter 11 
bankruptcy in 1997, then shut down operations in December, 2000. To add 
insult to injury, Sears purchased 18 of Ward's stores and 10 auto centers 
when it liquidated. 

Baldwin Piano, the No. 1 U.S. keyboard manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy 
protection earlier this month amid slack consumer demand, competition from 
Japanese imports, and rising costs. 

Baldwin pianos have a reputation for quality, supplying the Chicago Symphony 
Orchestra since 1963, according to Mary Sauer, the orchestra's a principal 
keyboardist. 

But the 140-year-old company's fate came as no surprise to the industry as 
piano sales growth had been slow in recent years, according to Music Trades 
Magazine. 

Baldwin's stock fell 88 percent from $18.75 in October, 1997 to $2.15 when 
NASDAQ halted trading in May. 

THE BANKRUPTCY CHALLENGE 

A Chapter 11 bankrupt company has three options -- considerably revamp its 
business, hope for a buyout or liquidate. 

Filing for Chapter 11 is like going to a hospital emergency room because a 
cure is not guaranteed, said Michael Reilly, partner in the law firm Bingham 
Dana in New York and co-head of the firm's financial restructuring group. 

"Recently, even more large companies are liquidating because they no longer 
have a niche in the business," said Reilly. 

One company that survived Chapter 11 is bicycle maker Schwinn/GT Co. In 1992, 
Schwinn was a 97-year-old family business that had filed for bankruptcy 
protection amid rising debt and marketing mistakes. 

Investment firm Zell/Chilmark bought the family business in 1993 and 
introduced a new line of mountain and fitness bike models. Schwinn purchased 
GT Bicycles in 1998 and captured the largest market share in a growth market 
-- sales through specialty bicycle shops rather than mass merchants like 
Kmart and Wal-Mart. 

But Schwinn is not yet assured of success in its marathon race back to the 
head of the pack. Its current owner, Questor Partners Fund LP, put the 
company up for sale a few months ago. 

"Most brands brought back a second time never quite return to the stature 
that they had initially," said Kris Larsen, president of Interbrand, a brand 
consulting firm. 

19:21 06-21-01
 



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