How Brand Relevance Can Fade Even When Everyone Knows the Brand

Not too long ago, I was sitting with a few friends when someone randomly mentioned BlackBerry. Within seconds, everyone had a story. Someone remembered the tiny keyboard, another talked about BBM, and someone else joked that carrying a BlackBerry once made you look important. For a few minutes, it felt like we were talking about one of the biggest brands in the world.

Then someone asked a simple question: “Would you buy one today?”

The table went quiet.

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Nobody hated the brand. Nobody had forgotten it either. We all knew exactly what BlackBerry was. But somehow, none of us had even considered it while buying our last phone. That conversation stayed with me because it highlighted something I hadn’t really thought about before.

That’s what brand relevance looks like. People still know your brand. They respect it. They might even have good memories attached to it. But when it’s time to make a decision, your name doesn’t naturally come to their mind anymore.

Why Brand Relevance Is So Easy to Lose

I think most businesses spend years trying to become memorable, and that’s completely understandable. Recognition is hard to earn. It takes years of good products, consistent marketing, and customer trust before people instantly recognise your name.

But staying relevant is a completely different challenge.

The world doesn’t stand still, and neither do customers. The way we shop today is different from how we shopped five years ago. The apps we use, the content we consume, and even the problems we expect brands to solve keep changing. If a brand doesn’t change along with those shifts, people don’t necessarily stop liking it. They just slowly stop thinking about it.

BlackBerry is probably one of the clearest examples of this. People didn’t wake up one day and decide they disliked the brand. In fact, many still speak highly of its quality and security. But while the world moved towards touchscreens, app stores, and entertainment, BlackBerry continued to be known for something people no longer valued as much.

The same thing happened with Kodak. Even today, almost everyone knows the brand. It reminds people of family albums, old cameras, and childhood photographs. But when was the last time you heard someone say, “Let’s buy a Kodak” before going on a trip? The memories are still there, but the buying habit has quietly disappeared.

That’s exactly what brand relevance is about. It’s the difference between being remembered and being chosen. A brand can easily achieve the first and still struggle with the second.

I sometimes notice this with local businesses too. There’s a stationery shop near my house that’s been there for years. The owner knows almost every customer by name, and people genuinely like the shop. But these days, many of us end up ordering the same notebooks online because it’s faster and more convenient. We haven’t stopped liking the shop. Our habits have simply changed.

I think that’s the hardest part for any business to accept. Customers rarely leave because they suddenly dislike a brand. More often, they leave because another option fits their lives a little better. Convenience changes. Technology changes. Expectations change. If a brand stays exactly where it is while everything around it moves forward, it slowly becomes part of people’s memories instead of their routines.

Also read: Why Internal Branding Should Come Before External Branding

The brands that stay relevant are usually the ones that keep paying attention to those changes. Netflix didn’t insist that DVDs would always be enough. It noticed how people wanted to consume entertainment and changed with them. Spotify understood that people wanted instant access to music instead of downloading songs. Neither company abandoned its purpose. They simply changed the way they delivered it.

Maybe that’s the biggest lesson about brand relevance. Customers don’t expect brands to become something completely different every few years. They just expect them to keep fitting into their lives as those lives continue to change.

In the end, recognition is something people carry in their memory. Relevance is something they carry into their next purchase. A brand can survive for years on recognition, but it grows only when it remains relevant.

And perhaps that’s the real challenge of branding. It’s not making sure people remember your name. It’s making sure they still think of your name when they’re ready to choose.

– Written by Bhavya Singhal, an emerging journalist and a Digital Media and Communication student exploring branding, marketing strategy, and consumer psychology through practical observations and real-world examples.