SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, WHO LEADS?
The contest or rivalry among brands has become glaring from the various designs of the products to the products’ functions and durability. Gone are the days, when he who pays the pipers dictates the tune among brands. The fact that some brands name have become synonymous with its products type does not interpret the success of the brand in terms of shelves presence to consumer patronage. The 21st century technology has made new brands compete with existing ones or pushed the existing ones into the background. Even among consumable products, consumers choices now differ from the regular and what is responsible for such include failure of the manufacturer to rebrand to consumer taste, the brand failure to develop identity with which to connect to customers in terms of quality service amongst others. The following are brands that were once products type names, but the story now is survival of the fittest among other players in the industry.

GALA VS RITE SAUSAGE ROLL
At a point, every sausage rolls in the market was referred to as Gala. But the emergence of other sausage roll brands reduced the sales of Gala drastically. Rite Sausage rolls now climbs the ladder of success easily, giving UAC, the manufacturers of Gala a sleepless nights.

MAGI AND KNORR CUBES
All foods seasoning in the industry are referred to as Magi, the level of intellect of the consumer notwithstanding. The failure of Magi brand to go into variants gave loopholes to Knorr food seasoning that came with varieties like chicken cubes, beef cubes among others to occupy the upper and visible part of the market shelves. While trying to struggle out of the kick, many other food seasoning jumped into the market to send Magi to a state of unconsciousness in the minds of the consumers. The manufacturers have now resorted to direct sales as the only option to sell the dying brand.

CLOSE UP AND MACLEAN TOOTHPASTE
Young and old people refer to almost all toothpastes as Maclean few years back. At a point, the product died due to unknown reasons, even when it was the only major player in the industry. A wide gate was thrown open to Close Up Toothpaste, which, since inception, has not relented in its effort to be conspicuous in the media and in the hearts of consumers. Close-Up is not relying on the media alone as it came up with different forms like herbal and multiple colour paste. Though Maclean was rebranded few years ago into the memory of its popular signature tone, the brand keeps trying to win its once loyal consumer back, but this seems to be a difficult task.

STAR AND HARP LAGER BEER
The once accepted ‘shine-shine bobo’ lager beer that once littered the table of consumers at bars has now become a second choice and is only demanded whenever Harp Larger Beer is not available. The promise of the brand to deliver a distinct service got sunk in the dungeon with the rebranding of Harp Larger Beer. The 60th anniversary and introduction of old television commercials to ginger consumers’ interest has really done nothing positive to get the beer on the right track again, but it has left Harp in a vantage position to take the lead.

MOTOROLA AND NOKIA MOBILE PHONES
Back to the days before the introduction of GSM in Nigeria, there existed mobile phones from Motorola, which could only be found among the extremely rich. Even telephone box in most homes were products of Motorola. As GSM flooded the country, many mobile phones manufacturers gate-crashed into the country, and took over from Motorola. The failure of Motorola phones can be traced to its bad battery life, unattractive shape among others. Nokia has now become the favourite of most people, as the phone comes with different models that has good shape, long battery life, easy-to-use package and many more.

SHARP AND L.G ELECTRONICS
Sharp is among the first set of electronic manufacturers in the country. The brand has in its collections TV sets, radio set and many more, but all these electronics need high voltage of electricity to power on, which means any house without a high voltage might not be able to use the product. L G Electronics, Asian products, was introduced into Nigeria considering our constant low voltage electricity and this among others made it a sought after. L G, which is into all sorts of electronics, even introduced what is common in the Western world to the African customers which is years of warranty, on product once its purchased from an accredited dealer and the gesture made Africans to patronize the Asian product leaving Sharp behind despite its recent rebranding.