Andy Warhol's famous poster has seared Campbell's tomato soup onto the consciousness of the nation. But it wasn't enough to prevent it from being canned. Premier Foods' announcement last week that the iconic soup would disappear from UK shelves next March demonstrates that even a 140-year history does not guarantee a brand's survival in today's market.

With Asda on a crusade to test the equity of household names, including Walkers crisps and Princes tuna, brand owners might well be questioning the security of their own heritage products. So, should they be worried?

Food and drink companies have long played the heritage card. Cadbury recently celebrated 100 years of its Dairy Milk brand; Unilever makes much of the 180-year history behind Colman's mustard; and Twinings refers constantly to its 300 years of tea-making experience.

However, while drawing on the past is an effective way of reasserting a brand's identity, heritage alone no longer guarantees success.

While Premier Foods was set to lose the licence to the Campbell's name next year, plummeting sales of the brand indicate it has already fallen out of favour with UK shoppers.

"It's not a particularly relevant product in the UK any more," says Jonathon Gabay, marketing expert at Brand Forensics. "People want convenience and the problem is that condensed soup doesn't say that, it says value for money.

"Batchelors has invested a lot to create a brand personae of foods that are wholesome but also convenient. When you look at the name Campbell's it is iconic, but it doesn't say fast or convenient."

Campbell's isn't the only heritage brand to have lost its relevance over the past few years, according to Intangible Business, which values brands based on their future growth as well as sales. It says brands such as Bassett's, the oldest of Cadbury Schweppes' sugar confectionery brands, and Birds Eye, are also failing to appeal to new consumers. Other household names that are suffering include HP baked beans and Quality Street, despite attempts by owner Nestlé to use its heritage as a selling point.

Yet Stuart Whitwell, joint MD of Intangible Business, asserts that heritage is still important.

"If something happens to undermine your brand, having a strong heritage can help," he says. "In the case of Dairy Milk, [the effects of] the salmonella outbreak could have been a lot worse if the brand didn't have such a trusted heritage."

Simon Black of brand design company The Design Bridge also believes consumer trust in heritage brands means they are safer than newcomers, but warns that companies must be prepared to move with the times. "Heritage is a real balancing act," he says. "Brands need to use it to their advantage but not be tied down by it. You need to use heritage to define a brand's core values and then see how these values fit in with the present."

The repositioning of Beefeater Gin is a good example of this, he says. "The brand's ancient beefeater image has been largely unchanged since 1820, but it lost its relevance as being London's gin. So we went back to the brand's core values and positioned it as a drink connected not only to London but also to what's good about the city, and revived it."

This is the crux of the matter; companies that rely solely on heritage could be in for a shock, says Gabay: "If a brand doesn't have relevance it slowly dies." n

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