Bangalore: Globalization and increased competition compound the number of new brands. Many companies that produce goods and services for consumers use various strategy and formulas to boost the sales and market shares of brands. Most of the time these strategies click, while at times the company notices that these strategies are irrelevant and have been losing traction with consumer. Often the management of the big existing brands does face a serious dilemma — quite apart from the effects of the current global economic downturn.  A common phenomena existing in these big brands that are diminishing their value in the market is ‘risk of bankruptcy or major restructuring’, ‘risk of takeover’, ‘mismanagement’ and some ‘major turnovers’.

Listed below are few such brands

AOL

AOL is known for its online software suite. There was a time when AOL announced it had 34 million subscribers at its peak.  It was in the year 2000 AOL and Time Warner merged under the name AOL Time Warner for $160 billion. The merger did not prove fruitful and this resulted in Time Warner going public again in 2009. Revenues have since declined sharply. Since the merger in 2001, the value of AOL has dropped significantly from its $240 billion high.  On February 25, 2009, AOL merged AIM Profiles with Bebo.  But again the companies were battling with the thought of shutting down or selling Bebo. They managed to wrap this issue successfully but with a huge loss on investment. AOL’s financial losses are so bad they’re starting to float the idea of selling the company. AOL recently purchased The Huffington Post for $315 million. The fourth quarterly results was disappointing as the profit fell 66 percent to $22.8 million, or 23 cents per share, from last year's profit of $66.2 million, or 61 cents per share. Revenue, meanwhile, decreased 3.2 percent to $576.8 million.