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Brand Architecture

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Brand Architecture is a system that organizes brands, products and services to help an audience access and relate to a brand. A successful Brand Architecture enables consumers to form opinions and preferences for an entire family of brands by interacting or learning about only one brand in that family. An established Brand Architecture is an important guide for brand extensions, sub-brands and development of new products. It will also provide a road map for Brand Identity development and design, and remind consumers of the value proposition for the entire brand family. It also provides the maximum brand value by fully leveraging both corporate and sub brands.[1]

In the field of brand management, brand architecture is the structure of brands within an organizational entity. It is the way brands within a company's portfolio are related to, and differentiated from, one another. The brand architecture should define the different leagues of branding within the organization; how the corporate brand and sub-brands relate to and support each other; and how the sub-brands reflect or reinforce the core purpose of the corporate brand they belong to. Often, decisions about brand architecture are concerned with how to manage a parent brand and a family of sub-brands – managing brand architecture to maximize shareholder value can often include using brand-valuation model techniques. One may regard the designing of a brand architecture as an integrated process of brand building through establishing brand relationships among branding options in the competitive environment. The brand architecture of an organization at any time is, in large measure, a legacy of past management decisions as well as of the competitive realities brands face in the marketplace. Before the term 'Brand Architecture' was coined, the strategic model that gave rise to this - showed all 5 levels of what was termed 'Brand Bonding' by authors Mihailovic and De Chernatony and the full paper can be seen here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/bm.1994.14. The strategic advantage of brands 'shifting gears' between the 5 are clearly outlined in the paper but essentially the Brand Bonding Spectrum has the HOUSE BRAND at one end and PRODUCT BRAND at the other. Inbetween one finds a power balance between the two as L'Oreal tends to do e.g. L'Oreal + Studio Line[2]


Creating a Strong Brand Architecture[3]

The purpose of brand architecture is to make your offerings clearer, not more convoluted. There are 3 simple steps toward defining a sound, intuitive brand architecture: Research, Strategy, and Migration.


Creating Brand Architectur

  • Research: The best brand architecture starts with research on brand awareness, brand loyalty, and associations. Only with research can you know how your audience understands (or doesn’t understand) your key offerings. Research data will tell you which brand architecture type will best support your business strategy. It gives you the information you need to parse your offerings or divisions in a way that makes sense to those you serve. Research includes qualitative initiatives comprising one-on-one interviews with internal and external stakeholders. Quantitative research enables you to test the hypotheses developed in the qualitative phase with more widely distributed online surveys to understand how and why your customers make decisions. Other research types include brand equity studies to better understand the equity each of your business’s brands has in relation to each other and the market at large. And a competitive brand audit will provide further insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your brands, as well as those of your top competitors.
  • Strategy: In the strategy phase, you determine the optimal brand architecture type for your business’s unique needs. Each type offers a different way to leverage (or not leverage) the master brand. How closely do you want to associate your sub-brands to your parent brand? This question is particularly relevant if you’ve recently undergone a merger or acquisition (and even more relevant if a former competitor was involved in the process). To what extent should your various brands cross-reference and promote each other, or to what extent do they need to remain independent? The best way to answer this question and others is to create illustrative examples of multiple architecture alternatives, identifying the pros and cons of each. Evaluate each alternative against pre-determined criteria to ensure objective evaluation. Prioritize clarity in the connections between sub-brands, divisions, products, or services. Cross-promotion between brands doesn’t work if customers are confused by the correlations between your extensions. The more common elements there are among your brands, the stronger the synergy is between them. Lastly, be realistic when it comes to budget and resources. Make sure to create a system that you can reasonably expect to support given the manpower and capital you have available.
  • Migration: The final step is to create a blueprint for the system you’ve organized and outline a plan for migration. This includes a naming structure and identity system that clearly delineate your various sub-brands or extensions in a way that aligns with your overarching brand strategy. The visual and verbal breadcrumbs that result from a tightly constructed blueprint are key to helping customers and other external stakeholders navigate your brand architecture. In addition to the brand architecture blueprint, deliverables of this final stage should include a profile of your brand portfolio, outlining the following:
    • The strategic role of each brand
    • The scopes of each brand (offers, geographies, customers)
    • The identity relationships of each brand to the master brand
    • Various approaches to the expression of each brand

Finally, management tools such as decision trees for future architecture decisions will ensure that you continue to get the most out of your chosen architecture as your brand continues to grow.


Importance of Brand Architecture[4]

Brand architecture is how the brands within an organisation are related and how they interact with each other. It is created by keeping the target market’s perspective in mind. Brands need to create a brand architecture as it helps them to –

  • Stay organised internally – looking at the brand with the eyes of the customers helps to find out the loopholes in organisation structure and the communication strategies and helps the brand to stay organized internally.
  • Manage perception – Developing brand architecture makes it easier to manage the outside perception about the brand, its offerings, and their relations with each other.
  • Create Synergy – Having an organised brand architecture creates a synergy among the child brands and the parent brand and help the organisation deliver against a larger brand promise.


Components of Brand Architecture

Brand architecture includes a master brand, brand extensions and sub-brands (and even sub-sub-brands). Here’s a brief explanation of what these brand architecture components are:

  • Master Brand – it’s the top-level corporate brand, also called the parent brand, which encapsulates all the offerings of the company. Usually, the parent company’s brand name forms the master brand.
  • Sub-brand – a sub-brand is a product or service brand which is affiliated with the parent brand but has its own brand name and identity.
  • Brand extension – brand extension refers to the process of using an established brand name on new products to increase sales.


Types of Brand Architecture[5]

There are three main types of brand architecture: the Branded House, the House of Brands, and the Endorsed Brand. Each option comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.

The Branded House: FedEx is an example of The Branded House brand architecture, with their operating companies and portfolio of solutions all falling under the name of the master brand. This structure makes for a consistent experience, minimizes confusion, and builds equity for the corporate brand.


Fedex Brand Architecture


The House of Brands: One brand architecture example for The House of Brands is Procter & Gamble, with dozens of product brands underneath the parent P&G brand. This structure makes sense for P&G due to its large number of products, many of which have been marketed for decades under the product name. Changing the name of something like Crest to match the Procter & Gamble parent brand would only serve to confuse loyal consumers—this way, P&G retains the brand equity of all their products.


P&G Brand Architecture


The Endorsed Brand: Marriott is an example of a hybrid brand structure where some brand extensions feature the parent name, while others do not. This format provides flexibility in naming and brand building. However, some consumers may be unaware of the connection between the master brand and companies that carry a different name (between Marriott and Sheraton, for example).


Marriott Brand Architecture

  1. Defining Brand Architecture Gravity Group
  2. What is Brand Architecture? Wikipedia
  3. How to a Create Strong Brand Architecture Ignyte
  4. Importance of Brand Architecture Feedough
  5. Types of Brand Architecture Element Three