Hoover brand may turn to dust

Ground Floor: Apparently my first word was Hoover. It's not a word I've used a lot subsequently, since I usually try to get someone else to do that particular task around the house. I blame the asthma - like Hoover's inventor, Murray Spangler, I wheeze when faced with dust, which is a good excuse for staying away from it, writes Sheila O'Flanagan

In my younger days the art of vacuum cleaning was synonymous with a Hoover. Very few people used anything else and if they did they talked about "hoovering" rather than vacuuming. They still do.

Which is why it must be a big blow to Hoover to learn that its parent company, Maytag, is considering selling it. Maytag, a major white goods manufacturer in the US, recently reported its year-end results and chief executive Ralph Hake expressed his disappointment that gains made in some areas of the company were offset by losses in others. He singled out "floorcare performance" as being poor. Hoover's sales were down 20 per cent in the last quarter of 2005. It has been losing out to vacuum cleaners like Dyson over the last few years and, consumer trends being what they are, people are beginning to regard Hoover as a dated product. This is despite aggressive website advertising of its latest upright cleaner as a Sports Utility Vacuum (SUV).

I like to think I'm not particularly swayed by trends, but the truth is that I gave up on Hoover a few years ago. Despite buying an expensive model we were struggling with the cat hairs deposited by the real master of the home. (I know cats, dust and asthma don't mix well, but it's the art of living dangerously!) Anyway, the Hoover wasn't getting the job done and we switched to the mega-suction Dyson which did.

I'm sure Hoover and its SUV have probably battled back but I don't know whether or not I'd bother to buy one again since I'm happy with the Dyson. (Although I would like it more if there was a way of trapping the dust in a bag. I know the whole idea is all about bagless suction but I can't actually empty the thing because that really does bring on a fit of wheezing.)

Hoover's brand awareness is awesome. Even if the company stopped trading tomorrow people would still talk about "hoovering". Which makes it all the more disappointing that they have allowed themselves to be overtaken by their competitors. But perhaps when your brand name becomes a verb you begin to believe your own publicity. And once brand awareness is lost, it's very hard to regain it.

According to BusinessWeek, Coca-Cola is still the world's most valuable brand, despite the fact that the company is suffering as it lags behind in the trend towards healthier drink products. It's followed by Microsoft and IBM, which is an engaging mix of old and new technological giants.

It's interesting that, like Hoover, IBM was once the iconic company in its industry but it lost its way. It has finally managed to reposition itself although not without pain. It's hard to see Hoover managing to do that, despite the SUV.

Another brand name which has had a bad time over the past number of years is Kodak. The company has suffered badly on the back of the digital revolution but has a four-year transformation plan in place which depends heavily on digital revenues - in part from home printing and kiosks - to claw back its brand recognition.

Digital revenues were up 40 per cent in 2005 and, as a proportion of overall revenues, continue to increase their share - from 41 per cent in 2004 to 54 per cent in 2005. The plan may succeed but, in the meantime, the company's investors still had to swallow a -28.6 per cent return on their investment last year.

Revitalising an old brand can be done but, as Kodak is finding, you have to embrace the new technologies and think ahead to make it work. One of the top gainers in brand recognition for 2005 was my perennial favourite, Apple. The iPod is, of course, ubiquitous at this point and I knew that it had carved out a special niche when the steward on a recent flight mentioned the need to switch off iPods, not MP3 players, when he spoke of electronic equipment.

When broadchannel.com, an online magazine which looks at global branding, announced its readers' choice award for the brand which had most impact in 2005, Apple joined Google and Skype as the top three global brands. Google and Skype have joined Hoover in seeing their product name become a verb, which is good news, if not necessarily a guarantee of eternal success.

There are regional differences, however. In the US, the top three were Apple, Google and Starbucks. Europe's most recognised were Nokia, Ikea and Skype. In Asia, Sony, Toyota and Samsung were the leaders while South America bucked the trend that two out of the top three should be technology companies. There, the leading technological brand was Telefónica (the Spanish phone company), but it was behind Corona and Bacardi in consumers' affections.

So is there a lesson for Hoover or its new owners, whoever they may be? Perhaps it's to embrace technology. Put a K in the name if you're in Europe. Forget SUVs, they're yesterday's news. An innovation that didn't allow dust to escape on emptying would be good. But what I'd really like is a silent Hoover. So I can hear my iPod on those rare days when I put the vacuum cleaner through its paces.

www.sheilaoflanagan.net