Reinvention

But today's landscape is vastly different. There's a new player on the block and they've turned the notion of directories inside out. Google has emerged as the largest media directory and has left a steady decrease in advertising sales for the first time in the history of Yellow Pages directories.

Senior executives at Kodak will tell you the same thing. Just seven years ago they had no doubt about their company's future success. Just three years later, almost overnight, their future looked doubtful. Take-up rates of digital cameras seriously bit into their foundation product, and the future of one the world's oldest brands looked even less promising.

About six years ago senior executives at the LEGO company would have been bullish about the company's future. Their plastic construction bricks were only held back by their capacity to produce them. And then five years ago computer games became affordable and accessible. The future of LEGO was in jeopardy. Last year saw the LEGO company's biggest loss in history.

The list of companies moving from guaranteed safe to guaranteed dead is growing. And your brand might very well be heading the list - without you even knowing it. For the keepers of the brand and the creators of the business model, the question is not only how to avoid such a situation, but when it begins happening, how can you turn it around.

Kodak might offer an answer. They simply faced the consequences. Four years ago their former CEO of Kodak heard the death knell and did something substantially dramatic. He stopped their core business - producing film. In a public statement he announced the company's decision to shut down film production. If you happen to work in a company where your its most important revenue stream is based on a business model which you know is going to cease, what would you do? Find another solution -quickly. And that's exactly what Kodak did. The dramatic decision seemed to work. By 2004 Kodak became the leading manufacturer of digital cameras - leading a highly competitive market.

You can't be half pregnant. Kodak new this and reacted accordingly. Adapting this very way of thinking to Yellow Pages, LEGO or any other company which is lining up in the obsolete queue, the solution is clear. Yellow Pages has determined that within five years they will become a paper-free digital company. LEGO has concluded that the plastic bricks that millions of kids used in childhood creations will be retired in seven years and replaced by something else equally compelling in the construction category.

Needless to say, this is not an easy decision. Particularly in light of the fact that there are no guarantees. However to meet the challenge, and succeed, can be part of the next stage of branding.

Only time will tell. So, in the meantime, keep an eye on Kodak, Yellow Pages and LEGO - and let's see which formula will fly or which will hit the fan.