Once great brands ...... now junk.

flaneur

goose2005 wrote: »

ballymaloe




The cost of cocoa beans has gone way up over the last few years, it's caused chaos in the chocolate industry

That's no excuse for Oreos in the Dairy Milk!!

seachto7

Gibson guitars

JohnBoy26

Cienciano wrote: »

JVC and Pioneer used to do higher end stereos now they do the cheaper end stuff like Sanyo used to do.

Pioneer are still one of the better car audio brands. Even their cheaper stuff is decent.

Soft drinks manufacturers have RUINED the taste and satisfaction associated with their products recently by cutting the amount of sugar and adding artificial sweeteners and stevia glycosides.

The whole point of lucozade for instance was that it provided a large dose of satisfaction from its extremely high sugar content but now this has been robbed from us.

I remember 15 years ago the standard for cordial (mi wadi etc.) was for it to contain added sugar (ie. be satisfying). With mi-wadi in particular, bottles of "full-sugar" used to have a green cap, no-added-sugar would have a blue cap. 10 years ago I noticed more and more flavours could only be found in no-added-sugar form (eg. lime). The other night I was in a supermarker and I don't think it was even POSSIBLE to buy cordial with added sugar. So from my perspective, it is no longer possible to buy satisfying cordial like was once the case.
Similarly go the soft drinks fridge in any garage or supermarket - drinks like Vit Hit, soft drinks with the word "zero", everything advertising that it has "zero" calories - if I was given one of these drinks when I was a child I wouldn't have drank it, and thats saying something.

The following drinks, if you look at the label, state that they contain sugar AND SWEETENERS where a few months ago it didn't.
- Club Rock Shandy (the most unfortunate of them all as it is a very popular drink - I could tell instantly it had been altered for the worse)
- Fanta (tastes watery and doesn't hit the spot in your brain anymore)
- Club lemon (not as satisfying)
- Seven UP (contains stevia)
For all these drinks (and more) you can see that the calorie content per 100 mls has decreased significantly. So while it represents a victory for the health lobbyists and scientists looking to have a purpose in life, it robs the general population of yet another source of pleasure for in their lives.

They are clearly doing a few things:
- 1. aiming to avoid the sugar tax and then trying to compensate by adding non-sugar sweeteners.
- 2. trying to adapt to a changing culture where people are obsessed with not putting on weight and so they try to position as the standard version of their beverages, the one with "no added sugar". I noticed reacently an ad for coca cola (a general ad for normal coke, diet coke and coke zero) which featured at the end of their ad a bottle of coke zero where previously it would have been the flagship product of normal coke. I just picture all the marketing people thinking they are geniuses coming up with the idea of aiming towards a healthier market and that people wont notice their drinks now taste way worse.

I notice though that the most popular flagship brands of Coca Cola, Pepsi and Club Orange have not yet been ruined because the manufacters aren't stupid enough to think people won't notice, like they did in 1985 when "new coke" was a massive flop. But even coca cola must be changed since 12 years ago when I remember it tasting wayyyy better, even more than can be accounted for than just the fact I was a teenager

My main drinks are water, tea and (maybe once or twice a month) beer but I do like an occasional full sugar fizzy drink for a TREAT. The era of satisfying soft drinks seems to be coming to an end though as the norm becomes for soft drinks to contain lower and lower amounts of energy and to not have any impact on insulin. It annoys me that "the government" decide to impose these sugar taxes and the drinks manufacturers (who owe us nothing at the end of the day) are basically cornered into ruining their products to pay for it.

So, chocolate is universally recognised to be EXTREMELY diminished in quality in recent years (less cocoa mass, more disgusting candle-wax resembling fat) and now soft drinks as we knew them are on the way out.

Cookie_Monster

jmayo wrote: »

Actually a common misconception that it is the same Mitsubishi company that makes the cars and the electronics like TVs (Mitsubishi Electric).

Mitsubishi Motors car division is actually now 1/3 owned by Renault–Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors truck/bus division is not majorly owned by Daimler (Mercedes Benz).

I'm well aware of that, it was just a handy (non Mitsi made) Segway into the topic of cheap ****e cars

AMKC

Kodak. They made great camera,s but did not change quick enough to keep up with the times. A pity I had a lot of Kodak camera,s and still have one and its a great camera. I think Kodak should have made mobile phones.

JVC there was a great brand now its just a name on some Turkish made crap.

Nokia another great brand but again did not keep up with the times.

Saab great cars but then bought by a company that did not care about them and ruined them.

AMKC

Kodak. They made great camera,s but did not change quick enough to keep up with the times. A pity I had a lot of Kodak camera,s and still have one and its a great camera. I think Kodak should have made mobile phones.

JVC there was a great brand now its just a name on some Turkish made crap.

Nokia another great brand but again did not keep up with the times.

Saab great cars but then bought by a company that did not care about them and ruined them.

JohnBoy26

AMKC wrote: »

Kodak. They made great camera,s but did not change quick enough to keep up with the times. A pity I had a lot of Kodak camera,s and still have one and its a great camera. I think Kodak should have made mobile phones.

JVC there was a great brand now its just a name on some Turkish made crap.

Nokia another great brand but again did not keep up with the times.

Saab great cars but then bought by a company that did not care about them and ruined them.

Tv's yeah, audio product no.

Ol' Donie

flaneur wrote: »

Hoover

Yeah. These days mine is just good for gathering dust, really.

Eh? Eh?

(Bob Mortimer joke there.)

Rumpy Pumpy

Were Dyson vacuum cleaners ever any good? Because now they are massively overpriced plasticky junk with about a fifth of the suction power of a 20 year old Nilfisk.

Third_Echelon

Aiwa stereos... had a great one on the 90s. Fantastic sound...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa

Aiwa (アイワ), registered as Aiwa Corp., is a consumer electronics company owned by Chicago-based Joe Born since 2015. Aiwa was originally a Japanese company founded in 1951, and was once a globally well-regarded brand known for making quality audio products, such as speakers, boomboxes and stereo systems.[1] It was the market leader in several product categories. Aiwa created the first Japanese cassette tape recorder in 1964.[2] The company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange from October 1961 until September 2002.

The company went into the red in the late 1990s, and was fully bought by Sony in 2002. Aiwa was then rebranded as a new youth-focused division of Sony, but it was unsuccessful and the brand was discontinued by 2006. In 2015, an American audio company known as Hale Devices, Inc. was granted the rights to the brand name, with the company renaming itself to Aiwa Corporation and starting to produce audio equipment.[3]

SEPT 23 1989

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

Were Dyson vacuum cleaners ever any good? Because now they are massively overpriced plasticky junk with about a fifth of the suction power of a 20 year old Nilfisk.

Look at me with my hoover hanging prominently on the wall

W@nkers

JohnBoy26

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

Were Dyson vacuum cleaners ever any good? Because now they are massively overpriced plasticky junk with about a fifth of the suction power of a 20 year old Nilfisk.

They are ok, nothing too special about them, they seem to have a reputation built on hype but I've found them reliable and decent enough. They aren't near miele though.

AMKC

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

Tv's yeah, audio product no.

They also made great VCR's we had one back in the day.

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

Were Dyson vacuum cleaners ever any good? Because now they are massively overpriced plasticky junk with about a fifth of the suction power of a 20 year old Nilfisk.

Yes they are I have one nearly 10 years old now and super it never misses a beat and is very versatile and tough too.


Philips are not really into domestic electronics anymore are day not like 10 years ago they were everywhere then. I did Tesco selling Philips TV's recently do and they were the same size but cheaper then the Sharp TV's so take from that what you want.

JohnBoy26

AMKC wrote: »

They also made great VCR's we had one back in the day.

I had a jvc crt tv once and im fairly sure it was made by ferguson in the uk.

joeysoap

Tricity.

super cookers.

JohnBoy26

Akai is another once good brand that is chepo rebaged nowadays.

Avatar MIA

Gravelly wrote: »

They've gone down the same road Mercedes did in the late 90's, going from a design and engineering led company to an accountant led one.

I remember studying as an accountant 15 years ago and reading how Mercedes strategy to start off with a desired margin and working backwards was criticised.

magentis

murpho999 wrote: »

A completely normal business transaction.

Apple designed it and Samsung built it.

I beg to differ.

Apple buying screens from a company they have taken legal action against numerous times.Clearly because they could not manufacture the screens themselves or get someone else to at a lower cost.The chunk out of the screen at the top must have been an apple idea alright.

Peatys

flaneur wrote: »

In a lot of cases, certainly with the electrical and electronics brands, it's just some modern day cheapo company cashing in on some long-since-closed-down company's brand legacy.

For example, The Hoover Company hasn't existed since 1995. You're actually buying products from Candy in Europe or Techtronic (China) in the US.

A lot of the other whitegoods brands that are out there are made by a Turkish company called Arçelik (yes that's really its name). It's a division of Koç Holding (which is pronounced Coach...) and known usually as BEKO in Ireland, the UK and much of Europe .... for obvious reasons.

In case you think I'm making those names up:

https://www.arcelik.com.tr/default.aspx?lang=en-US https://www.koc.com.tr/en-us/

Some of them are just store brands / local relabelers who own an old legacy brand, sometimes they're owned outright by Arçelik.

flaneur wrote: »

The Nordmende brand is owned by KAL Kitchens in Ireland and sources appliances from various companies.

It's a weird one, as it's owned by Technicolor (Thomson SA) everywhere else, although I'm not aware of them still using it.

Also, Nordmende was a high end audio/visual/radio brand originally, it didn't make domestic appliances.

Bush is a trademark of Sainsbury's / Argos group now and used as an own brand.

Ferguson seems to be used by Thomson SA in some markets, but they've totally moved away from making appliances and are far more focused on their core businesses around IP and telecommunication stuff.

You need to be careful to check behind brands before you actually buy. In a lot of cases you've people buying products that are nothing to do with the original companies at all.

Why in the name of Jasus do you know all that?

colm_mcm

flaneur wrote: »

In a lot of cases, certainly with the electrical and electronics brands, it's just some modern day cheapo company cashing in on some long-since-closed-down company's brand legacy.

For example, The Hoover Company hasn't existed since 1995. You're actually buying products from Candy in Europe or Techtronic (China) in the US.

A lot of the other whitegoods brands that are out there are made by a Turkish company called Arçelik (yes that's really its name). It's a division of Koç Holding (which is pronounced Coach...) and known usually as BEKO in Ireland, the UK and much of Europe .... for obvious reasons.

In case you think I'm making those names up:

https://www.arcelik.com.tr/default.aspx?lang=en-US https://www.koc.com.tr/en-us/

Some of them are just store brands / local relabelers who own an old legacy brand, sometimes they're owned outright by Arçelik.

Hoover lost huge amounts of money in a free flights promotion where they totally underestimated the uptake and the actual cost of the flights. Cost them 50 million at the time and contributed to their demise.

EIREDriver

AMKC wrote: »

Kodak. They made great camera,s but did not change quick enough to keep up with the times. A pity I had a lot of Kodak camera,s and still have one and its a great camera. I think Kodak should have made mobile phones.

Supported a software package sold by Kodak in an old job. Was a horrible system. Very buggy and not user friendly at all. My boss summed it up well when he was assigning it to me. "This is getting replaced shortly so you won't have to worry about it for long. It was sold by Kodak. When's the last time you heard of them? Exactly..."

RDM_83 again

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Soft drinks manufacturers have RUINED the taste and satisfaction associated with their products recently by cutting the amount of sugar and adding artificial sweeteners and stevia glycosides.

The whole point of lucozade for instance was that it provided a large dose of satisfaction from its extremely high sugar content but now this has been robbed from us.

I remember 15 years ago the standard for cordial (mi wadi etc.) was for it to contain added sugar (ie. be satisfying). With mi-wadi in particular, bottles of "full-sugar" used to have a green cap, no-added-sugar would have a blue cap. 10 years ago I noticed more and more flavours could only be found in no-added-sugar form (eg. lime). The other night I was in a supermarker and I don't think it was even POSSIBLE to buy cordial with added sugar. So from my perspective, it is no longer possible to buy satisfying cordial like was once the case.
Similarly go the soft drinks fridge in any garage or supermarket - drinks like Vit Hit, soft drinks with the word "zero", everything advertising that it has "zero" calories - if I was given one of these drinks when I was a child I wouldn't have drank it, and thats saying something.

The following drinks, if you look at the label, state that they contain sugar AND SWEETENERS where a few months ago it didn't.
- Club Rock Shandy (the most unfortunate of them all as it is a very popular drink - I could tell instantly it had been altered for the worse)
- Fanta (tastes watery and doesn't hit the spot in your brain anymore)
- Club lemon (not as satisfying)
- Seven UP (contains stevia)
For all these drinks (and more) you can see that the calorie content per 100 mls has decreased significantly. So while it represents a victory for the health lobbyists and scientists looking to have a purpose in life, it robs the general population of yet another source of pleasure for in their lives.

They are clearly doing a few things:
- 1. aiming to avoid the sugar tax and then trying to compensate by adding non-sugar sweeteners.
- 2. trying to adapt to a changing culture where people are obsessed with not putting on weight and so they try to position as the standard version of their beverages, the one with "no added sugar". I noticed reacently an ad for coca cola (a general ad for normal coke, diet coke and coke zero) which featured at the end of their ad a bottle of coke zero where previously it would have been the flagship product of normal coke. I just picture all the marketing people thinking they are geniuses coming up with the idea of aiming towards a healthier market and that people wont notice their drinks now taste way worse.

I notice though that the most popular flagship brands of Coca Cola, Pepsi and Club Orange have not yet been ruined because the manufacters aren't stupid enough to think people won't notice, like they did in 1985 when "new coke" was a massive flop. But even coca cola must be changed since 12 years ago when I remember it tasting wayyyy better, even more than can be accounted for than just the fact I was a teenager

My main drinks are water, tea and (maybe once or twice a month) beer but I do like an occasional full sugar fizzy drink for a TREAT. The era of satisfying soft drinks seems to be coming to an end though as the norm becomes for soft drinks to contain lower and lower amounts of energy and to not have any impact on insulin. It annoys me that "the government" decide to impose these sugar taxes and the drinks manufacturers (who owe us nothing at the end of the day) are basically cornered into ruining their products to pay for it.

So, chocolate is universally recognised to be EXTREMELY diminished in quality in recent years (less cocoa mass, more disgusting candle-wax resembling fat) and now soft drinks as we knew them are on the way out.

I don't know if you can get it on this side of the world but mexican coke cola is the product your looking for.
Places sell it in the US and Canada as a speciality product or in mexican restaurants, it comes in 400/500 mil ish size glass bottles and has a metric f-ckton of cane sugar in it so it's a way better drink.

flaneur

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

Were Dyson vacuum cleaners ever any good? Because now they are massively overpriced plasticky junk with about a fifth of the suction power of a 20 year old Nilfisk.

Miele with a bag is the job! Not as expensive as Dyson and no nonsense.

alias no.9

magentis wrote: »

I beg to differ.

Apple buying screens from a company they have taken legal action against numerous times.Clearly because they could not manufacture the screens themselves or get someone else to at a lower cost.The chunk out of the screen at the top must have been an apple idea alright.

Apple never made screens, iPhone screens were probably always sourced from Samsung. They've never assembled iPhones, it's always been done by Foxconn.

Hotblack Desiato

There's bound to be a market for premium priced (so a bit of sugar tax won't matter) full-sugar drinks aimed at adults - like Jolt Cola.

Stephen15

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

I had a pair of Karrimor boots that survived snow, mountains, jungles, swamps, thousands of kilometres of hiking. When they eventually gave up I picked up a new pair, not knowing they had been bought out by Sports Direct. They looked the same, but fell apart within months. All glued together.

Heard North Face is going the same way.

North Face has from a brand for hikers and adventurers to skangery brand that can be found in JD Sports.

Mountainsandh

Cadbury's and other chocolate brands.
It's nothing but fat and sugar nowadays. I miss the proper chocolate.

Nekarsulm

EIREDriver wrote: »

Supported a software package sold by Kodak in an old job. Was a horrible system. Very buggy and not user friendly at all. My boss summed it up well when he was assigning it to me. "This is getting replaced shortly so you won't have to worry about it for long. It was sold by Kodak. When's the last time you heard of them? Exactly..."

When slide film was the archive standard, Kodachrome 64 was a superb film.

Stephen15

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