Dr. Ichwan Anggawirya, S.Sn., S.H., M.H.

Not a few major global brands were once considered too strong to be defeated. These names not only dominated the market but also shaped consumption culture, social status symbols, and even the identity of certain generations. However, business history shows that no matter how strong a brand's power, it can still decline when companies fail to understand changes in market psychology and the direction of human behavioral shifts.

This phenomenon indicates that a brand's strength is not solely determined by its capital, product quality, or the company's long history. In many cases, the greatest threat arises precisely when companies fail to understand changes in market psychology. In today's perception economy, consumers move much faster than the adaptation rhythm of large corporations.

One of the most famous examples can be seen with Kodak. For decades, Kodak was known as a symbol of global photographic dominance. Ironically, the company was among the first to develop digital camera technology. However, Kodak experienced what is often called the innovator's dilemma in business theory, a situation where large companies fear making changes because they worry that new innovations might damage the old revenue streams that have sustained their success.

Kodak clung to its conventional photographic film business for too long, believing that business model was still very strong. As a result, when the world began to shift en masse towards the digital era, Kodak lost its strategic momentum. This case illustrates that the greatest threat to a major brand is sometimes not from external competitors, but from the company's internal resistance to change.

A similar situation was observed with Nokia. In its prime, Nokia was not just a mobile phone manufacturer; it had become a symbol of global technological dominance. However, as the smartphone era began to emerge, Nokia was too slow to view the telecommunications industry as solely a hardware industry. Meanwhile, consumer behavior had shifted towards digital experiences, application ecosystems, internet integration, and more flexible user experiences.

Nokia's mistake was not simply being late in making smartphones, but rather in failing to understand that the market's value center had shifted. Consumers no longer bought devices based solely on hardware quality, but on the daily digital experiences they had. In the context of branding strategy, Nokia's case demonstrates that consumer loyalty is never permanent. Loyalty can change very quickly when a brand fails to maintain the relevance of the experience.

The BlackBerry case is even more interesting when viewed from the perspective of social psychology. For a certain period, BlackBerry was not just a communication tool; it had become a symbol of professional identity and social prestige. Owning a BlackBerry at that time was often associated with modern status, exclusivity, and the business class.

However, as digital culture began to move towards touch screens, application flexibility, more dynamic visual interfaces, and personal expression through social media and mobile applications, BlackBerry clung to the belief that its consumer loyalty would endure. What ultimately collapsed was not just BlackBerry's hardware, but the social symbol that had long been attached to the brand.

Another very interesting example can be seen with Yahoo. In the early days of the internet, Yahoo was once one of the biggest names in the digital world. However, over time, the brand's identity gradually became more blurred because it ventured into too many services without a clear positioning.

In branding theory, such a condition is often referred to as brand dilution and identity fragmentation. When a brand tries to be everything, the public finds it increasingly difficult to understand what the brand actually wants to be known for. Consequently, differentiation weakens, and market relevance gradually declines.

The Gap case also offers an important lesson about the power of emotional memory in visual identity. When Gap drastically changed its logo in 2010, the public reacted very negatively in a short period, forcing the company to revert to its old logo.

However, not all visual identity changes end negatively. Starbucks is often considered an example of successful logo evolution, carried out gradually and measuredly. The company did not change its visual identity abruptly but slowly simplified its symbols while retaining the core psychological elements deeply ingrained in consumer memory. Even when the words "Starbucks Coffee" were eventually removed from its logo, the public could still instantly recognize the green siren symbol.

From a branding psychology perspective, Starbucks' success shows that the strength of visual identity does not always lie solely in aesthetics, but in a symbol's ability to build emotional resonance aligned with the psychology and character of the target market. The company did not just preserve the visual form but also maintained the consistency of associations, atmosphere, and brand "vibrations" that had been deeply embedded in its consumers' minds for years. In certain circumstances, a logo can even evolve beyond its function of brand identification and become a cultural symbol that lives independently within society.

In many cases, visual identity no longer functions merely as a graphic design element but is a collective emotional memory strongly embedded in consumers' minds. Therefore, visual changes made too abruptly without psychological sensitivity risk damaging the emotional connection between the brand and the market, especially if these changes remove old elements that have been deeply ingrained in consumers' minds, such as color identity, shape characteristics, or specific visual patterns that have become part of the collective memory of that brand.

Meanwhile, the New Coke case is often considered one of the most important lessons in the history of branding psychology. In terms of taste, the New Coke formula actually achieved good results in various consumer tests. However, Coca-Cola at the time placed too much faith in the quantitative data from blind tests and failed to understand the much deeper emotional dimensions.

The public was not just buying the taste of the drink. They were buying nostalgia, cultural identity, childhood memories, and emotional connections that had been built over decades. It was at this point that the company realized that the power of a brand often transcends the quality of the product itself.

These various examples illustrate that in the modern economy, companies do not just compete through products, but also through perceptions, cultural relevance, and emotional space in human minds. Therefore, the greatest threat to a major brand often arises not when competitors become stronger, but when companies fail to realize that the way people interpret the world has changed.

This condition also shows that the value of a brand is not only built through legal strength but also through emotional and psychological relevance in consumers' minds. In business practice, legal protection of trademarks is a crucial foundation for maintaining the exclusivity, identity, and commercial value of a brand built over years. However, at the same time, legal strength without the ability to maintain market relevance risks a decline in commercial value. Conversely, brands that can maintain emotional attachment with their consumers will strengthen their intangible asset value and increase the strategic value of the protected brand.

In today's perception economy, the strongest brands are not always the largest, but those that are most capable of reading the direction of human change before that change actually occurs.

IndoTrademark IP Law & Brand Strategy