What We Can Learn From The Most Surprising Brand Comebacks

Establishing a strong, effective and recognisable brand is an exceptionally difficult task, and typically is the result of strong, clear values presented in the best and clearest way possible.

For local businesses, a design agency in Hull is the ideal place to start, as they can not only provide and develop dynamic, effective marketing strategies, logos and brand iconography, but they can also help a company present a strong, honest brand.

However, whilst establishing a great brand is an exceptionally difficult task, knowing what to do when a brand falters, either through stagnation, negative brand recognition or a major event, can be exceptionally difficult.

Whilst every example of a brand’s decline is as unique as each brand's success, there are lessons to be learned from some of the most surprising brand comebacks.

The playing card company turned video game giant Nintendo is interesting not only for how it managed to turn its fortunes around, but how it managed to do this twice in the space of 10 years.

At one point at the forefront of video game technology, the Nintendo 64’s launch in 1996 was a turning point, as its reliance on cartridges rather than CDs made the Nintendo brand look old-fashioned, out of step and childish compared to competitors Sony, Sega and Microsoft.

Nintendo

This severely affected the sales of both the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Gamecube, but the company turned it around by leaning into this perception and using innovative design to make up for rather limited hardware, a philosophy known by president Satoru Iwata as “lateral thinking with withered technology”.

The resulting products, the Nintendo DS and Wii are the second and seventh highest-selling video game consoles of all time.

A similar approach was taken after the failure of the Wii U in 2017. After Nintendo faced their first losses in decades, they used the same tactic to produce the unique yet relatively cheap Nintendo Switch, which became the fifth best-selling console of all time as well.

Apple

It is telling that Apple’s resurgence was so successful that people forget that the company was weeks from bankruptcy in 1997, still producing a wide variety of confusing and generally terrible products such as the Apple Newton.

Steve Jobs, the founder of the company, returned after a successful run with Pixar Studios and turned the company’s focus completely around with a focus on minimalism not only in design but also in the form of a limited product line.

This turned around the company and made them one of the most successful businesses of any kind in the world.