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It’s rare to witness the demise of a truly iconic brand. Yet this week comes news of not one but three brands that can claim this status staring into the abyss.

First we have Hostess Brands, the maker of both Twinkies and Wonder Bread, filing for Chapter 11 protection.

Wonder Bread was originally launched in the US in 1921, and then relaunched in 1925 as the first sliced bread on the market. This inspired the phrase “best thing since sliced bread” and changed the history of bread forever: a genuine innovation by anyone’s standards.

Wonder Bread continued with innovation, being one of the first breads to fortify with essential vitamins and minerals, and one of the first breads to offer ‘wholegrain white’ in 2006. Wonder Bread was also the first to introduce a colour-coding system whereby consumers can determine on which day a loaf of bread was baked by the different coloured bag ties. However, Wonder Bread has not innovated in line with market trends, and has become increasingly dated.

Twinkies were launched in 1930. A highly innovative (at the time) combination of cake filled with creme, Twinkies have become an all-American icon, selling around half a billion a year. Bill Clinton put a Twinkies bar into the White House millennium time capsule, claiming it represented an “object of enduring American symbolism”.

It has to be said that Twinkies has not exactly set the world on fire with its innovation – a strawberry and vanilla flavor filling seems to be the extent of its efforts. The brand, like its stablemate Wonder Bread, has suffered from the trend in the US towards a healthier lifestyle. Its packaging is dated, and displays the high fat product in its worst possible light. What a tragedy that a brand with so much consumer equity has not kept up with the times. The possibilities for innovative new products building on its brand, both within its core category and exploring new areas, must be limitless.

Of course it is true that Hostess Brands is suffering from sky-high labour costs, but an inability to move with the times, and innovate its way towards higher margin, more modern products must be at the heart of its problems.

A similar problem faces another American icon: Kodak.   20 years ago, Eastman Kodak was the giant of the photography world, with more than 80 percent of the American film market. Kodak had a ‘licence to print money’ business model built upon a combination of international distribution, lowest cost production, R&D investment to develop better products, and extensive advertising – its iconic “Kodak moment” advertising strapline became synonymous with a treasured memory.

The first blow for Kodak came when Japan’s Fuji entered the market on a low cost strategy. Fuji succeeded in gaining rapid distribution, as well as building consumer credibility through professional endorsement and for example sponsorship of the 1984 LA Olympics.

However, the body blow for Kodak was the advent of digital photography, which at a stroke completely wiped out Kodak’s business model. The irony is that Kodak’s own engineers are credited with making the first prototype digital camera back in 1975. However, the idea was not thought to be a priority by the management of a company entirely driven by its chemistry based film business. It finally entered the market, but even though Kodak was number two in digital cameras by 1999, it lost $60 on each one sold. Digital photography is now dominated by Canon, Nikon and Sony.

To be fair, Kodak tried to innovate its way out of trouble. Inkjet printers, cartridges and papers might have yielded a profit stream for Kodak. However, many other competitors had got there first, so Kodak has failed to make money from this venture.

Kodak is now focusing upon four growth sectors at the intersection of digital imaging science and material science it hopes will turn around the company’s sliding fortunes in 2012: consumer and commercial inkjet printing, packaging printing and workflow software. However, analysts believe this is too little too late, and bankruptcy beckons for this once global colossus.

The film business was one of the all time great business models. But Kodak has been guilty of not seeing the future coming, and relying on the old world continuing the same way. What a sad ending for a brand that was once as globally recognised as Coca-Cola.

It’s the same story for both of these once-great companies. Companies that lead in one generation of technology or brand leadership struggle to reinvent themselves for the next unless they remain nimble and future-focused. The world moves on, or competitors catch up – and sometimes both. As soon as you stop innovating you go backwards.

The lesson is very clear: there is nothing more risky than not innovating.