We built 7 startups, a 9th pan-India podcast on Spotify in 2022 & a Global Top 10 Personal Branding & PR Agency in 2024 & 'publicly' built 1-10,000 YouTube subscribers in 95 days. So if you want to grow your personal brand without guessing what works, join the 250,000+ community!
Look at any industry - be it Vodafone in telecom, GM and Porsche in the automotive space, to PSU banks in India & even Hooters & Red Lobster in casual dining - legacy brands are falling. And not because demand died, but because these brands didn't evolve fast enough.
The world doesn’t punish legacy; it punishes inertia.
There was a time when “legacy” equaled trust. But today, legacy without innovation is a burden. Look at Vodafone - once the gold standard in telecom, now struggling to define its relevance in the 5G and data-first age.
But this is not confined to any particular region. It's a global phenomenon which has even affected household names in causal dining - like Red Lobster and Hooters. These aren’t random failures. They’re symptoms of a single disease - brand stagnation in a fast-moving world.
The Casual Dining Parallel
Applebee’s is closing outlets, TGI Fridays is hanging by a thread - yet, restaurant sales overall are up! So the demand for eating out is still alive - but the way people choose to dine has changed.
That’s the modern business dilemma in a nutshell. It’s not that people stopped buying - they just stopped buying your way. Consumers haven’t reduced their appetite for value, experience, or storytelling - they’ve simply redefined what those mean.
Legacy brands are still trying to sell reliability. The market, however, rewards relevance.
The Hooters Mistake
Hooters was once a cultural phenomenon - a brand that sold an “experience” rather than just food. But that experience belonged to a very different era. As the world moved toward inclusivity, new-age dining, and experiential storytelling, Hooters stayed frozen in its old identity. It didn’t evolve its model, its culture, or its narrative.
And when culture shifts faster than your brand, no amount of nostalgia can save you.
Adaptation Is the New Currency
At Brain Box Catalysts, my partner, Arpita often reminds her restaurant clients - “People don’t visit for food anymore; they visit for a feeling.” That’s as true for hospitality as it is for personal branding. That’s why “functional marketing” no longer works. You can’t just tell people what you do. You have to show them who you are - and why it matters now.
What Founders Can Learn
Every founder begins with passion. But somewhere along the way, processes, products, and inertia take over the story. You start managing the business instead of evolving the brand. You start chasing short-term performance instead of long-term connection.
And before you know it, the market moves past you. The truth is - no one outgrows their audience. They just stop listening to them. The antidote isn’t more activity - it’s renewed authenticity. You need to constantly audit not just your performance metrics, but your perception metrics - how the market feels about you, not just how it buys from you.
Because survival today isn’t about size, history, or brand recall. It’s about the courage to reinvent before the market forces you to.
The "Brain Box" Story
We were honored to have been featured on the cover of "The Indian Achievers". This is the LinkedIn post & this is the full article.
The Lion Who Grew up wIth Sheep
This story depicts what happened when he actually came face-to-face with a real lion!
Ep. 91 Clip: Our First "hinglish" podcast with CEO of a $100 Mn publicly listed company
We built 7 startups, a 9th pan-India podcast on Spotify in 2022 & a Global Top 10 Personal Branding & PR Agency in 2024 & 'publicly' built 1-10,000 YouTube subscribers in 95 days. So if you want to grow your personal brand without guessing what works, join the 250,000+ community!
