What is brand architecture?
Brand Architecture is an organization system for brands, products, and services. This system organizes brands and their accessories to create and manage new brands with ease.
A successful brand architecture allows consumers to organize their opinions. It priorities about all related brands just by reading about them. In other words, with the help of a successful brand architecture system, consumers can learn about other brands of that business family just by studying one of the brands that are members of a business family.
These explanations may seem a bit vague and confusing at first. As we move on and become familiar with the different ways in which a brand architecture strategy is developed. We will gradually come to understand this concept.
Creating a brand architecture is an essential guide to organizing and disseminating information about all of a brand’s belongings, including:
- Its sub-brands
- Brands with the same family
- Products produced by it
- Services provided by it
In its path of growth and development, every brand needs brand architecture to help it develop its brand design and identity and remind its consumers and audiences of its value and all its belongings.
Take a deeper look at this topic and gain a little more knowledge about this issue. It is necessary to introduce some important concepts about brand architecture and get acquainted with them before explaining.
Master Brand
The master brand, or the parent brand, is the main and leading brand that other brands are under, licensed, or managed.
Brand extension
An extension brand, also called a brand extension, actually refers to using a brand name to produce new products or services in a different category and area of activity. For example, if the Dunlop brand was known for producing car tires, years later, it also began producing professional sports equipment. Dunlop sports equipment is called Dunlop brand expansion or generalization.
Types of brand architecture
Now that we are familiar with these two concepts, we can introduce three common types of brand architecture:
1- Branded House
In this style of brand architecture, the name of the main brand is evident as the branch or top of all sub-brands and belongings of a company. FedEx is one of the international brands in this field that has used the Branded House method in its brand architecture. The FedEx sub-category, Kinko’s, which generally operates in another field of work, bears the name FedEx at the beginning of its title (FedEx Kinko’s).
Another example of this brand architecture is true of Google. It operates as a search engine in the main brand. In its Branded House, it has the following brands and titles:
- Google play
- Google map
- Gmail or Google mail
- Google Drive
And many other cases, each of which operates in a different field but belongs to the Google brand and displays its name at the beginning of its title.
As it turns out, in this method of brand architecture, the company uses the reputation and popularity that the original brand has gained over the years of investment and effort to create a new brand in the same field of activity or other activities. Slowly This is a style of brand architecture.
2- House of Brands
In this style of brand architecture, several different titles and brands that seem to compete with each other operate separately in different or common areas. Without the name of the main brand and the mother brand, which all these brands are under its branch, somewhere in the eyes of the audience, the activities of these brands are bold and visible.
A clear example of this brand architecture is Proctor and Gamble. The company owns Crest toothpaste, Tide detergent, Olay skincare products, and several other brands. It has launched each of these brands in a separate field of activity.
Many people do not even know that Crest toothpaste, for example, is not a parent brand and is itself the product of another brand. One of the biggest advantages of this style of brand architecture is that if, for example, the factory or the Crest brand is in crisis one day, other brands will not be harmed. The parent company can reap profits from other brands and activities. To supply itself.
In this type of brand architecture, although people with a simple search on the Internet can find out that these brands they are dealing with are not the parent brand and belong to a company under another name. This issue is very important for the parent company. Because this company has been able to take root and become strong in different sectors by spreading its capital in different parts of the market, if he has a problem on one side, he can solve his problems and challenges with his strong roots on the other side and continue his life.
3- Hybrid or Endorsing Brand
In this style of brand architecture, also known as a hybrid or endorsed brand, the core brand establishes several other brands in the same field. However, like the first method, Branded House, there is no sign or trace of the parent brand name in the titles of other brands. Usually, most people do not know that these brands belong to one parent brand.
A clear example of this brand architecture is Toyota. The company owns TOYOTA, Lexus, and Scion brands. Before reading this example, many of you may not have known that the Scion or Lexus also belonged to the Toyota brand. Sometimes the main purpose of House of Brands brand architecture is the invisibility of the relationship between brands. Sometimes there is even a competitive market between these brands. It brings a significant achievement and profit for the parent company.
In this method of brand architecture, sometimes even the parent company competes with its sub-brands in the market. Or sub-brands themselves enter into serious competition with each other. All of these terms and conditions are profitable for the core brand.
These three methods of brand architecture are the most common and common methods of brand architecture in the world. However, discussing them is much more complicated than this simple acquaintance. Because to choose one of them or better introduce these cases, the strengths and weaknesses of each must be examined separately and carefully.
Three steps to implement a successful brand architecture
But to know what is necessary to pay attention to successful brand architecture, consider the following three steps:
1- Your vision is to form an ecosystem of company portfolios.
To create such a vision, you need to look beyond your products. Think about what your customers need and what strong resources you have. You can do this in the following ways:
Monitor the behavior of customers and their view of your company. See what products and services they most welcome and which sectors you are stronger at developing and delivering.
Have nothing to do with your current products, and do not think about building or completing a collection of your products. A spark may form in your mind and create a new product or service that has nothing to do with your current products and services. You have a customer for it. You have strong resources and capital to produce it.
Paying attention to these two things will enable you to identify opportunities and achieve that ecosystem.
2- Think forward and move.
Always be ready for the future. For this job:
Create perspectives and explore them. If they are suitable, take small and measured steps in their direction. If they are not suitable, throw them away and create new perspectives.
Make the connection between your current brand and the brand you have built for the future. See if the two can interact with each other, help each other, and work together to be effective for you. It is important to create a new brand from the main brand story or business story and establish a connection between the two.
This method helps you to be effective in formulating your brand architecture strategy.
3- Balance your shareholders.
As you write scripts and stories about brand architecture and new brands, you need to always keep in mind the stakeholders. So far, your brand architecture has focused on customers, their needs, and decisions. But now, the focus is shifting from products and services to shifting value to the company.
Find out what your stakeholders think and think about the new brand or brands you have in mind. See how they view this new scenario and its relation to the parent brand.
Form a significant range of scenarios to connect the new idea with the current brand and discuss it.
In general, the brand and the new adventure you intend to embark on should be understandable to all stakeholders.
