what brand architecture helps you
determine which products and services to introduce
Central Question: How do we use different
brand elements to manage brand equity across the entire portfolio of products?
How to leverage brand awareness with brand architecture
Helps communicate SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCES between individual products and services
How to leverage brand image with brand architecture
Maximizes transfer of equity between the brand and the individual products to improve trial, sales, and repeat purchase
Guidelines to Optimize Your Brand Architecture Strategy
Adopt strong consumer focus
Create broad and robust brand platforms
Avoid overbranding
Selective with subbrands
Selective brand extensions
3 Steps for developing brand architecture
Step 1. Define Brand Potential
Step 2. Identify brand extension opportunities.
Step 3. Specifying brand elements for branding new products
Define Brand Potential (3 Steps for developing brand architecture)
Brand Vision: Management’s view of the brand’s long-term potential: How well can the firm recognize current and possible future brand equity? Transcends brands physical product categories. Vision = what the brand could be in the future.
Brand Positioning: Positioning = what the brand should be today/tomorrow. Ex: Meta’s near future, not the Metaverse.
Brand Boundaries: identifying the products or services the brand Should offer the benefits it Should supply, and the needs it Should statisfy.
Identify Brand Extension Opportunities (3 Steps for developing brand architecture)
Brand extensions: is a new product introduced under an existing brand name. - Line extensions: new product introductions within existing categories. Ex: Tide detergent to Tide Pod
- Category extension. Ex: Tide becoming a dry cleaning brand
Planning Brand Extension Opportunities
you can end up far from where the brand started but not without smaller steps to get there (nike:running –> basketball shoe 1980s —> clothing, equipment, apple watch co-branding. certain extensions built to other extensions)
Specifying brand elements for branding new products (3 Steps for developing brand architecture)
Branding for Clarity
Branded House Strategy (we have a corporate umbrella, but they rely on the corporate brand’s identity.
-FEDEX: Fedex freight, Fedex Office, Fedex Ground,
House of Brands Strategy (we’re gonna have a collection of different individual brands with different logos, identities)
-Unilever: AXE, Ben and Jerry’s, Dove, Lipton
Endorsed Brand.
“Coutyard by Marriott, Residence Inn Suites by Marriott…” Individual brands leverage the parent brand Marriott by still having their own identities.
SubBrand: Brand extension where product carries both new name and parent brand name (Apple’s iPad, Special K Nourish) Signals some similarities and differences.
The Brand-Product Matrix
Helps to think about how your brands’ offerings fit together (white space)
- do we want to consolidate? or keep it.
Key terms for brand product matrix
Brand line: All products sold under a particular brand
Product line: A group of products within a category that are closely related
because they perform in the same manner (i.e. sold to the same group, in the
same outlets, within a given price range). A product line may include different
brands, a single family brand, or a brand that has been extended.
Product mix: The assortment of product lines made available to buyers
Brand mix: All the brand lines made available to buyers
Why have multiple brands in the portfolio?
Increase shelf presence and retailer
dependence in the store
Attract consumers seeking variety who
may otherwise switch to another brand
Increase internal competition within
the firm
Yield economies of scale in advertising,
sales, merchandising, and physical
distribution (ex llenar el trailer Nutribits)
Possible roles of brands in the portfolio
- Attract a new market segment (Ex: Nike bought Cole Haan so they adressed work shoe)
- Flanker Brand/Fighter Brand. Not so attractive to take away the customers for flagship brand but takes away from competitors.
- Cash Cows: sustainability, some existing equity even with dwindling sales.
- Low-end/Entry Level. hopefully gettin ppl to level up later.
- High-end / Prestige (Chevrolet’s Corvette)
Brand Hierarchies
A useful means of graphically portraying a firm’s branding strategy by displaying the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements across a firm’s products
Corporate / company brand (brand hierarchies)
Highest level of hierarchy.
Consumer associations to the company or corporation making the product or providing the service
* Relevant when the corporate or company brand plays a prominent role in the branding strategy.
Some cases its omitted like Blue Moon under Miller Coors
FAMILY BRAND (brand hierarchies)
Used in more than one product category
FAMILY BRAND
* But is not necessarily the name of the company or corporation
* Also called a range brand or umbrella brand
ex: Tropicana, Quaker, Gatorade (all under Pepsico)
Marketers may apply family brands instead of corporate brands for several reasons:
DOWNSIDE:
* Evoke a specific set of associations across a group of related products
* Efficient means to link common associations to multiple but distinct products
* The cost of introducing a related new product can be lower and the likelihood of acceptance higher when marketers apply an existing family brand to a new product
* Failure of one product may hurt other products sold under the same brand
Individual Brand (brand hierarchies)
Restricted to essentially one product category (EX: Lays, ruffles, etc)
* Customization of the brand and all its supporting marketing activity
PRIMARY ADVANTAGE
If a brand runs into difficulty or fails, the risk to other brands and the company is minimal
DISADVANTAGES
Difficulty, complexity, and expense of developing separate marketing programs
Modifier level (brand hierarchies)
Must further distinguish brands according to different types of items or models
Function of modifiers: to show how one brand variation relates to others in the same brand family
Ex: Yoplait Greek, Yoplait classic, Yoplait Lactose-free
Product Descriptor
Helps consumers understand what the product is and does. In the case of a truly new product, introducing it with a familiar product name may facilitate basic familiarity and comprehension.
“original waffle and pancake mix”
- Which products to be introduced
for any one brand. (Guidelines For Designing Hierarchies)
Principle of growth: Nintendo introducing Wii = less funding for classic nintendos
Principle of survival: The brand extension needs to work in its category; “me toos” are discouraged
Principle of synergy: brand extensions should complement the current brand equity, not fight it
- The number of levels of hierarchy to use (Guidelines For Designing Hierarchies)
Principle of Simplicity:
Provide only what consumers need to
decide: employ as few levels as possible!
Principle of Clarity:
Logic and relationship of all brand elements should be obvious and transparent
Budweiser > Bud Light > Platinum > Seltzer
￭ Platinum = a high-alcohol “night beer”
￭ Bud Light = lower calories and alcohol
￭ Seltzer = malt beverage (i.e., not a beer)
- Desired awareness and image at each hierarchy level (Guidelines For Designing Hierarchies)
Marketers need to ask how many associations and brand elements do they
need to create at each level (corporate, family, individual brand, modifier).
Principle of Relevance: Marketers that create associations relevant to ALL levels in a brand hierarchy can be more efficient and economical
Principle of Differentiation:
Marketers also have to ensure that there is enough difference at each level so consumers can understand the distinctions
Which brand elements get emphasis (Guidelines For Designing Hierarchies)
Principle of Prominence
The relative prominence of brand elements determines which
become primary, and which secondary
Linking Brand Elements to Multiple Products (Guidelines For Designing Hierarchies)
Principle of Commonality
The more brand elements that products share, the stronger the linkages between them.
Lexical Links (Mc-everything in mcDonalds)
Visual Links (logo placement)
Logically order brands (numbers BMW, colors Amex card)
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Corporate brand equity
Differential response by consumers, customers, employees, other firms, or any relevant constituency to the words, actions, communications, products, or services provided by an identified corporate brand entity.
