50 “Obsolete” Companies That Have Outlived Any And All Expectations

Consumer psychology specialist Johnson was kind enough to shed some light on companies' longevity and what features contribute to it. "While adaptability and innovation are highly lauded in the business world, interestingly, many of the most successful companies have sold roughly the same type of product for nearly all of their history," he explained to Bored Panda.

"The oldest company still around today is Kongo Gumi, established in 578 AD, which ran independently, as a family-owned business until financial struggles forced it to be bought by a conglomerate in 2006. It began as a construction company for Buddhist temples, and still specializes in that today," the expert told us via email.

"While many companies may not plan millenniums in advance, they can invest in the medium term by investing in a perennial brand. It’s no accident that the most prominent brands that exist today have brand identities that are universally appealing and timeless. Coke has aligned itself with happiness, which never goes out of style; Disney with 'wholesome family joy'; Nike with 'world-beating ambition.' Planning for the future means betting on a brand personality that will still be appealing decades or even centuries down the road."

Moreover, companies that motivate a talented workforce also tend to persist longer. "In many instances, this also comes down to the core brand identity, as this serves as the general orientation—or higher order purpose, by which employees are motivated in their jobs. Working at Nike doesn’t just mean selling shoes, it means 'enabling dreams'; working at Disney doesn’t just mean making movies, it means 'telling generational stories,' etc. These aspects of the brand are thus as important externally (attracting consumers), as they are internally (motivating employees)," Johnson, the host of the human nature blog, shared his thoughts on brands and business longevity.

Meanwhile, Bored Panda wanted to find out how companies that were once very successful can become relevant in this day and age again if they've fallen on hard times. According to Johnson, this is a difficult process that will look different depending on each company's situation. For some, it's about sorting out their finances; for others, the solution lies in changing their products and services.

"Some companies have inextricable financial difficulties and may need to go through bankruptcy or acquisition through private equity. For others, they may be keeping afloat financially, but they have lost relevance; the market has moved away from what they can offer, and what they represent. In this scenario, they’re required to embrace significant change, such as adapting their products, services, and business models to re-align with current market demands," the consumer psychology specialist said.

"To reconnect with customers, and re-align themselves to the market, these companies may benefit from a customer-centric approach. And ideally, one that drops preconceived notions from the company about what it thinks consumers want, and instead, recognizes that it now needs to develop this from the consumer themselves. This may require a substantial re-brand, or even starting the brand from scratch," the author of 'Branding that Means Business' explained to Bored Panda.

"In either instance, the goal is to create an alignment between the brand’s identity and the wants, needs, and values of the target market. A great example of this can be found with Lego, which successfully rebuilt its brand identity through a consumer-centric approach in 2005 and hasn’t looked back. To this end, actively listening to customer feedback, conducting market research, and understanding evolving needs and expectations will provide important input to this process, and will help rebuild trust in the process." If you'd like to learn more about the Lego case, Johnson has written about it on his blog right over here.

To oversimplify things a tad, a company continues to be relevant while its products and services sell well. Naturally, that comes down to the quality of its services, the reputation of the company as a whole, and the business’s ability to market its products in an appealing way that beats the competition.

But none of those things happen automatically. You need quality managers, forward-thinking and supportive leaders, as well as talented individuals who bring the vision to life. There are so many moving parts that running a(ny) business can seem utterly overwhelming. 

Some of the main reasons why small businesses fail without leaving much of a mark, according to Investopedia, are related to a lack of funds and inexperienced management. For example, bosses who are unwilling to delegate and can’t visualize a proper business plan can throw a wrench into the entire company’s mechanism. Not only that but a lack of marketing and poorly executed campaigns can leave these businesses floundering.

Meanwhile, Legal Zoom points out that some businesses struggle when the team doesn’t do enough market research before launching their product or service. There’s a lot of diligent groundwork that needs to be done before you go live with your vision.

Another key issue is a poorly put-together team. If your staff are overworked, overwhelmed, and overtiming for the sake of the startup, sooner or later they’ll burn out and you’ll be left to pick up the pieces. You need competent people and enough employees so that nobody’s multitasking on tasks that are outside of their job descriptions.

Something else that can make the company struggle is a lack of agreement between the top brass. If upper management can’t see eye to eye on key issues or fail to communicate properly, the entire business and the staff are likely to suffer. It also helps if the company diversifies its clientele so that it doesn’t rely on just one or two customers for profit. 

It’s nearly impossible to predict the future with certainty, but we can still make guesses about the trends that are likely to dominate the business and tech space in the next decade or two. Of course, the further into the future we look, the more our prognoses will be more like science fiction rather than educated guesswork. 

During an earlier interview about the future of technology, Bored Panda got in touch with Ramona Pringle, the Director of the Creative Innovation Studio and Associate Professor at the RTA School of Media at Ryerson University.

“We don’t know what the future holds, and anyone who says that they do is selling snake oil. But, there are certain things we can count on: we love stories, and we love to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Be it oral storytelling, books, blogs, movies, or video games, we’ve never lost our love of narrative,” she explained to us previously. 

“Equally true, even when we can’t go into a concert hall or colosseum, we look for ways to be together, connected, and part of a communal experience. The tech might change, but these will continue to be the drivers of our entertainment experiences,” Pringle told Bored Panda before.

“Immersion and interactivity have long been goals for creators and media makers when it comes to how technology can influence entertainment,” the expert in innovation and the media said.

“For the last decade, we’ve leaned into virtual reality because of how it enables both of these. We can step inside a world and have influence over it, and the story or experience that unfolds. I think one of the things we can expect moving forward is, in a sense, the opposite of virtual reality. Instead, more of an enhanced reality or fictional reality, wherein the entertainment isn’t in a headset, but instead, all around us.”

According to Pringle, the tech sphere has evolved a lot over the years. “A decade ago, we didn’t talk to robots. Today, many of us do. Siri and Alexa are some of the more common bots, but we already interface with non-human characters regularly. As technology advances, including augmented reality and mixed reality, I think we can expect that entertainment will be something we can engage with off of the screen, but out in the world, with characters and stories we can engage with throughout the day, or throughout our houses,” she told us in 2020.

“Look at e-sports. Whoever would have thought that people would play money to watch other people play games? Media that engages us and gives us something to gather around, be it together, or virtually, is something that will always appeal to us,” the expert said.

“I think we can expect to see the ebb and flow of experiences that bring people together offline and then on screen, or online, as well. In the last few years, we’ve seen the rise of interactive and immersive venues like the museum of ice cream or the Dr. Seuss experience,” she said,

“These are places we can go, with friends and family, and have a shared experience. It feeds back into our online experiences because we can share photos or memories and these environments are designed to foster that. Certainly, as we find ourselves in a time of social distancing, we’re seeing new creative ways of “being together” even when we’re apart. So I think we can expect to see entertainment that helps us connect, be it online or off, and immerses us in an experience, story, or community.”