Top 20+ Favorite Baby Boomer Brands That Don't Exist Anymore
These favorite brands of baby Boomers just aren't around anymore!
1. Tower Records
Who doesn’t remember walking into Tower Records and grabbing the latest album? Most of Generation Z won’t, as the company went the way of the dodo before most were born. But when finding that album you can’t remember the name of meant actually looking through CD’s one by one, Tower Records was king. They had stores throughout the US, Tokyo and Europe.
2. F.W. WoolWorth
Few tales of rags to riches are as memorable and famous as Woolworth’s. First opened in 1879, the “five and dime store” model was a brilliant one that grew exponentially. The standards of operation and quality that were established at WoolWorth’s is still the basis for the actions of many corporations today.
4. Pan American (Pan Am)
One of the most recognizable brands in history, from 1927 until its ultimate demise in 1991, Pan Am Airlines was the largest international commercial flight carrier in the world. Lauded for revolutionizing and countless industry innovations, there use of jet aircraft and computerized reservation systems were ahead of their time. But their innovative methods ground to a halt as time went on, and that would become their Achilles’ heel.
5. BlockBuster
Blockbuster was an American staple in almost every family home. No need to have stacks of videos all over the place, families could rent movies and games freely. They operated via store fronts, and later an online DVD via mail system. Internal conflict within the company when CEO John Antioco stepped down over differences of vision caused the services to be scaled back.
7. Radio Shack
Founded in 1921, the electronics supply store chain, which reached its peak in 1999, as the source for the US’s best and latest electronics. However, competition was not kind to Radio Shack. As Amazon and Walmart started to eat further into profits, Radio Shack tried several poorly conceived marketing strategies that just served to put them further in the red.
8. Hummer
If you asked someone 10 years ago if they had seen a Hummer recently, they would probably have said that day. Now it is not so. The SUVs and trucks were manufactured in the 1990s and 2000s, all due to Arnold Schwarzenager, who badgered the AM General automobile manufacturer until they relented and started producing them.
10. DeLorean
Delorean was a one hit wonder that flopped spectacularly. John Delorean, a Former GM executive started the company with millions from the British as well as several celebrities including Johnny Carson. The first vehicles rolled off the company’s assembly line in 1981, but with a selling price of $25,000, it was out of the price range of most people.
11. Enron
Possibly one of the most publicized and sensational stories of the early 21st Century, Enron was a massive energy conglomerate that when it finally fell, it was one of the biggest companies in the US. The closure would affect the lives of 22,000 employees of the company.
13. Kodak
Kodak was once a titan of photography. In 1975, their release of the first digital camera changed an entire industry. Engineer Steven Sasson’s creation of the DSLR camera in 1989 further cemented the brands standing as an industry leader. Unfortunately, Kodak use it’s own momentum.
14. Toys "R" Us
The iconic toy store spanned 7 decades before finally calling it quits. First opening in DC in 1948, Toys R Us was extremely successful due to the baby boom and prosperity that categorized the US after the war. It would go on to become the premier toy store around the world, but modernizing had its cost.
16. Napster
Napster was a breakthrough peer-to-peer sharing platform that gave users the ability to upload, and share files, mostly songs over the internet. It was revolutionary at the time, but though it launched in 1999, it soon ran into a mountain of legal copyright issues. After a court ruling in 2001, Napster was forced to shutter its online activities, and was sold to media company Roxio.
17. Palm
Before BlackBerries were all the rage, Palm Pilots were the businessman’s digital organizer and productivity device rolled into one. Known for their various Palm products, as well as developing the first versions of webOS, Palm created a years-long trend of more and more supercharged portable devices.
19. Theranos
This company is not out yet, but it’s fall was truly an epic one. Elizabeth Holmes broke the media when she claimed to have developed a device that, using only a single drop of blood, could determine your risk for hundreds of conditions. Holmes’s star was on a meteoric rise. During 2014 she topped the Forbes’ list of the wealthiest self-made women.
