Lately, I have noticed an interesting trend-seeing the names of once-great manufacturers, on stuff that is cheaply made-mostly in China.
Specifically:
Polaroid (once the instant photography giant): on cheap digital cameras, low end batteries
Bell&Howell: they used to make high-end film projectors and tape recorders-now their name is on cheap binoculars, cameras, and VCRs
Emerson: used to make high end TVs, now the name is on cheap radios, TVs, audio stuff
Are people fooled by this? i imagine the Polaroid name had quite a bit of prestige-now who knows the name anymore?
I wonder if GE orKodak would ever allow their names to be used on inferior low end goods?
Not GE, but Westinghouse is now a name on cheap flat screen TV’s.
I don’t know that ‘Bugle Boy’ was ever what you’d call ‘high end’. I do know it was considered borderline-upper-crust, much the way Ed Hardy or Hollister have been in recent years.
Lately, though, Bugle Boy has been sold in Family Dollar stores, which are low-end. Like the Dollar Tree, but for stuff that can’t be sold for as little as a buck!
Sure, it works. A name your recognize is better than one you dont. If I needed a cheap digital camera and I saw a Polaroid and a Fukushima-Tech, I might just get the Polaroid.
You can source these cheap little electrics from China, slap your name on them, design the packaging, translate the manual and software, and make a profit pretty easily. No real engineering involved. Pretty tempting for companies that are dying anyway.
>I wonder if GE orKodak would ever allow their names to be used on inferior low end goods?
They’re doing too well to engage in this kind of thing.
I’m not sure what the question is, but companies that have either gone bankrupt or are in serious financial trouble have essentially been bought by other companies because of the value of their brand name.
Just like how Lenovo, a Chinese manufacture, bought IBM’s PC division so as to used the well-recognized “Think Pad” name for its laptops. Same thing with Haier trying to buy Maytag a couple years ago.
Companies like GE, which are doing better to well, aren’t likely to dilute their brand name by licensing it to sell junk.
I suggest you take a look at some of the GE and Kodak branded low end digital cameras.
GE licenses its name to Tatung Electronics who slaps it on televisions; General Imaging for cameras; Wal-Mart for small appliances (who then subcontract out to Haier, Funai, etc.). GE as a consumer brand is definitely not immune to being slapped onto low-end products.
GE also licenses its brand to Thomson Electronics which then has the GE branded cordless phone products designed and manufactured by CCT Telecom in China. AT&T also licenses its brand to VTECH Telecom who manufactures their cordless and corded phones. IBM did this as well with another company. Most big companies will license their brands out if the deal is right.
For some of the latter cases with GE, are we sure we’re not conflating “licensing” with original equipment manufacturing (OEM) and original design manufacturing (ODM)?
No. GE has nothing to do with them. Thomson pays a royalty to GE to use the GE brand. Thomson uses an ODM to supply the phones.
So does GE do anything, to insure that the products sold under its name are of decent quality? I would think that they would do something, to be sure that their brand isn’t being wrecked (by low quality products).
Of course, in cases where the original firm no longer exists (Polarroid, Bell & Howell), it is a moot point.
Acoustic Research and KLH used to be big names in speakers, but now they’re used on low-end junk. The brands were sold off a long time ago.
Many firms will have a quality clause. There will be a measurement criteria that the licensing firm must meet. This could be by return rate, customer satisfaction surveys or on site quality measurements. You don’t want to license your brandname to someone who will in turn trash it.
With clothes particularly, venerable old brands will often put their label on a mass market line that they sell to places like Wal*Mart. Levi’s, for instance, sells “Levi Strauss Signature” through Wal-Mart, and those are definitely not the ones they sell at Macy’s. Just by the online pictures on the company website you can tell they’re not of high quality; even the ladies’ jeans on the female models don’t look good. And if you can’t make a pair of Levi’s look good on a female model, there’s something seriously wrong! L.E.I is another brand I remember once seeing very often being worn by women. I don’t think they ever made jeans for men. I think they’re just a WalMart brand now.
As others have noted, when Thompson was the OEM for GE branded TV’s and other electronics the quality was subpar. They sold the lowest-end items, just a notch up from Daewoo or Symphonic. Hopefully the new deal with Tatung will bring some improvement.
Well, it probably will not, as for 20 years GE has created their market in the very low end. It would be hard to dig out of that hole without rebranding (a la Goldstar is now LG).
Let’s see…
Polaroid Company went bankrupt in 2001 and its assets (including its name)was sold to a subsidiary of Bank One. A lot of controversy later, and another bankruptcy, and another sale. See Polaroid Corporation - Wikipedia. Basically, today’s Polaroid is a completely separate company from the old Polaroid.
Bell and Howell: Merged with Bowe to become Bowe Bell and Howell. Still make high quality projectors, but Bowe has licensed the Bell and Howell name to cheap consumer gear.
Emerson: Emerson Radio company was taken over by Fidenas Investment Ltd in 1989, via a LBO, and the company went bankrupt in 1993. After that, Emerson simply went into licensing its name for money – no longer designing or manufacturing products.
So, what you’re seeing are companies that use to manufacture their goods being thrown into bankruptcy, and becoming nothing more than an empty shell with a name that gets licensed to any company who is willing to pay.
And everyone knows GE’s been in the toilet ever since it was bought out by the Sheinhardt Wig Company.
For what it’s worth, Polaroid does still have some interesting products, including a printer that prints photos without using ink (uses color thermal paper) and a camera with such a printer built in. In effect it’s an instant digital camera. The technology (ZINK for Zero INK) was developed by Polaroid but has been spun off into another company so it can be more easily licensed I imagine. Also, Polaroid has just announced that they (or the company that owns the brand anyway) will be reintroducing analog/film instant cameras next year, due to the success of The Impossible Project’s (http://www.the-impossible-project.com/) work on putting Polaroid film back in production. So while their name is now on some cheap junk mostly due to the bankruptcies and sales that qazwart mentioned, they’re also still around making interesting and presumably fairly high quality stuff.
That is a beautiful website, which leaves me without the faintest clue of who they are or what they did. Are they a bunch of DIYers? An over-funded set of venture capitalists? Wth? I’m so confused.
After a quick snoop around, it seems like they are a mix of venture capitalists and the former factory personnel that were running the place when it closed down in 2008. They believe there is still a market of instant film for old Kodak Polaroid cameras, and they’d like to begin producing their own improved instant film under their own brand name, using the old factory. It seems that they have been able to lease the factory and equipment from Kodak and have recently negotiated the rights to begin producing instant camera film for old Polaroid cameras.
As far as I can tell, the factory would be run by former Polaroid staff in an old Polaroid factory, but would not involve Kodak beyond licensing the technology and leasing the equipment.