Brand Architecture: Creating Clarity From
Chaos
As a general rule, chaos is not the best business strategy.
That may seem like an obvious bit of wisdom, but you’d be forgiven for thinking
otherwise by looking at the brand architecture of some the today’s brands.
Often the result of mergers, acquisitions, or just good old-fashioned unchecked
growth, too many companies these days have wound up with a collection of brands,
divisions, products, and services that can only be described as chaotic.
A clear, intuitive brand architecture is the best way to guard against chaos and
unpredictability. A strong brand architecture brings your range of offerings into focus,
letting you better cross-promote them and gain control over how your business is
perceived by consumers.
If you’re unaware of the practical applications of brand architecture, you’re not alone.
We find that many business owners have a limited understanding of this important
strategic device and the challenges it can address. What types of challenges? For
starters:
• Your customers aren’t aware of or don’t fully understand your full list of
your products and/or services
• You have one or more product/service that vastly out-performs the others
and you want to transfer some of its brand equity
• You have one or more product/service that vastly under-performs your
other offerings and you want to improve its visibility and/or reputation
• You have recently acquired or plan to acquire a new brand and want to
ensure you get the most out of integrating its products/services
• You are launching a new product/service line and need to integrate it with
your existing offerings
• You are preparing for a liquidation event and want to ensure you’ve
maximized your company’s brand equity
The list of practical benefits doesn’t end there. To fully understand what brand
architecture can do for your company, let’s take a closer look at what it is, why it’s so
valuable, and how to build a strong brand architecture of your own.
What is Brand Architecture?
Brand architecture is the organizational structure of a company’s portfolio of brands,
products, and/or services. These extensions can include sub-brands, products,
and/or services. Effective brand architecture includes an integrated system
of names, symbols, colors, and visual vocabulary informed directly by the consumer
thought process. That’s because key to brand architecture is your customer’s mental
organization—how they conceptualize your business and its portfolio of offerings,
and how each offering satisfies their needs.
Brand architecture defines both the breadth and depth of your brand. Not only does it
provide clarity around the organization of your offerings and how they are
understood by consumers, it also influences customer behavior by maximizing the
transfer of equity between your brands and sub-brands. If a customer has an existing
relationship or positive association with a master brand, for example, they are much
more likely to try one of its sub-brands.
Brand architecture is ultimately about managing perception. Externally, it helps your
customers and other stakeholders make sense of a multifaceted organization.
Internally, it can serve as a valuable tool for optimizing marketing efficiency and
performance. But the benefits don’t stop there.
Brand Architecture Types
In its most common iterations, brand architecture falls into one of four categories:
branded house, house of brands, endorsed, or hybrid.
Let’s take a closer look:
Branded House
A branded house includes a strong master brand with divisions that feature the
master brand name alongside a product or service description. Examples include
FedEx and its extensions FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, etc.
The branded house architecture capitalizes on established customer loyalty where
audiences care less about product features or benefits than they do about the
central brand promise they know and love (in the case of FedEx, “When it absolutely,
positively has to be there overnight”).
Additional benefits of the branded house approach include more efficient marketing
and advertising spend and positive equity spillover between sub-brands. Of course,
spillover can be negative as well. A problem with one sub-brand can wind up being a
problem for the entire brand.
Another risk inherent to a branded house strategy is dilution: when a brand is
positioned too broadly across multiple service categories, its meaning can become
too diffuse.
Examples of a branded house include:
• FedEx
• Apple
• John Deere
• Harley Davidson
• Virgin
House of Brands
A house of brands architecture features a collection of distinct, familiar brands under
a parent brand that customers may or may not be aware of. The parent brand is
primarily important only to the investment community.
The brand extensions in a house of brands system essentially endorse each other,
while the parent brand realizes the benefits. We find this in brands like Proctor &
Gamble and its vast array of products across multiple industries.
Products within a house of brands architecture sometimes feature their parent
brand’s identity on their packaging by way of a small logo or address. Some brands
choose not to disclose the relationship at all, because of specific strategies around
pricing, perceived quality, or target audiences.
The benefits of a house of brands approach include the ability to reach diverse
audiences and markets with a collection of specialized value propositions.
As for the cons, the biggest problem with this type of brand is the budget. Since the
parent brand has to work every brand from the scratch, it has to spend a lot in
advertising and marketing it. It is like the parent brand is managing independent
companies and has to worry about each company’s marketing separately. Under the
house of brands, the firm operates like a holding company for the various brands;
managing each brand as though it were a separate company and dealing with all of
the necessary legal requirements of this strategy certainly carries greater complexity.
Examples of a house of brands include:
• Newell
• Procter & Gamble
• Unilever
• Nestle
• General Motors
Endorsed
In an endorsed architecture, there is a parent brand and associated sub-brands, all
of which have unique market presences. The sub-brands benefit from their
association with, or endorsement from, the parent.
The relationships between the sub-brands within an endorsed architecture is often
mutually beneficial, as well, each benefitting from the strength of the other. Examples
include Kellogg and Nabisco, both of which proudly feature the name of their parent
brand on each of their products’ packaging. and its various sub-brands across the
price spectrum, from the Ritz Carlton to Fairfield Inn.
An endorsed strategy is one where you’ll find messaging like “brought to you by…”.
Endorsement limits a business’s reputation risk and offers more positioning
alternatives than a house of brands approach, for example.
Examples of an endorsed brand architecture include:
• Nabisco
• Kellogg
• Ralph Lauren
• Caterpillar
• Honda
Hybrid
Finally, a hybrid brand architecture comprises some combination of the above
iterations. In the case of Alphabet, Google is allowed to operate in the space it
knows best, search and advertising, while smaller brands, like Nest, Sidewalk Labs,
and Calico operate as individual companies in their own specialized verticals.
A hybrid model offers the flexibility of having multiple tiers of distinct hierarchies,
including varying levels of market-facing brands subservient sub-brands.
Many companies that have adopted the hybrid strategy have done so out of
necessity, though. A hybrid architecture is often more of an ad-hoc approach borne
from mergers and acquisitions, rather than a proactive brand strategy.
Examples of a hybrid brand architecture include:
• Alphabet
• Coca-Cola
• Microsoft
• Amazon
• Marriott Bonvoy
The Benefits of a Strong Brand Architecture
A common misconception is that brand architecture is only for large, complex
organizations. But even small businesses can see measurable improvements in
performance by better organizing their offerings.
Regardless of your company’s size, effective brand architecture can enable you to…
• Target the needs of specific customer segments. Brand architecture
enables you to segment your messaging so that each of your target
audiences hears what they want to hear and gets precisely what they’re
looking for.
• Significantly reduce marketing costs. When brands are architected in a
logical, intuitive way, your marketing efforts are exponentially more
efficient. With opportunities for cross-promotion between brands, marketing
is more effective as well.
• Clarify positioning and messaging. Nothing increases the efficacy of your
brand positioning like clarity. Clearly articulating positioning and messaging
is like giving your brand a high-performance tune-up.
• Facilitate growth and bolster stakeholder confidence.The modular nature of
an intuitive brand architecture makes it easier to add brands, products, or
services as your company grows. And future-minded brands are a
reassuring sign for investors and employees alike.
• Enhance customer awareness. When a brand’s various divisions are not
clearly delineated, they must rely on the parent brand to capture the
attention of the marketplace. Brand architecture gives a parent brand the
power of diversification by highlighting the unique strengths of its distinct
sub-brands.
• Build and protect brand equity. The upshot of all of the benefits above is
the ultimate competitive advantage for any company: brand equity.
Growing your brand equity gives you compound returns as industry
authority and marketplace valuation grow with it.
• How to a Create Strong Brand Architecture
How do you create a brand architecture that benefits both your company and your
customers? Firstly, don’t over-complicate it. 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.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
Factors to Consider When Creating a Brand Architecture
There are many factors to consider when deciding which brand architecture type
best suits your business’s unique needs. We’ve outlined six of the most important
ones below.
By taking into consideration each of the following concerns, you can mitigate the risk
that is inherent to any brand restructuring.
Brand Equity
It’s important to evaluate both the strength and flexibility of the existing equity in each
of your brands. Do you risk losing valuable brand equity by consolidating brands
after a merger or acquisition? Can an existing brand’s equity reasonably be
leveraged to promote another?
Proctor & Gamble can’t exactly leverage the equity of its Head & Shoulders brand to
promote other products in its portfolio like batteries or cold medicine. The resulting
confusion would be problematic for all the brands involved.
Culture
Internal factors like values and company culture are just as important as external
ones when structuring your brand architecture. If you’ve acquired a new company
with a radically different culture, it’s important to ask whether it makes more sense to
merge it or keep it separate. Certain divisions operate better with a level of autonomy
that isn’t compatible with a codependent marketing strategy.
A branded house approach demands that all entities be on the same page when it
comes to positioning and brand personality. If that doesn’t seem likely, or even
possible, another architecture type needs to be considered.
Growth Strategy
Growth strategy should be front of mind when determining brand architecture. Does
your business model entail pending mergers, acquisitions, or alliances? Do you plan
to expand your product or service lines in the near (or even distant) future?
Your brand architecture should support and enable successful growth by providing
strategic latitude for each brand. The right approach will allow you to identify
underperforming brands and avoid the exposure that comes with a single-brand
strategy.
Market
Perhaps the most important factor is the market or markets in which your company
operates. If your business targets a single market, a branded house can boost brand
awareness, optimize marketing spend and bolster reputation. If you have products or
services aimed at significantly different markets, multiple brands can help to protect
each market from the other, mitigating risk and ensuring differentiated messaging.
The Ritz Carlton retains its luxury status by keeping a branded distance from its
parent company, Marriott, and other, more budget-conscious sub-brands in the
Marriott family. Unable to compete in the luxury car market because of its pragmatic
image, Toyota launched Lexus.
And by acquiring natural foods brand Odwalla, Coca-Cola gained access to a fast-
growing market segment that was previously unavailable because of the soda giant’s
association with junk food.
Multiple brands mean multiple ways to fulfill the unique needs of multiple audiences.
Disruption
Another key factor is how much disruption you’re willing to endure with reorganized
brand architecture. Every rebranding initiative entails a certain amount of risk. The
important thing is to measure that risk against the long-term gain you stand to
realize.
Realigning lesser-known products under a well-known brand is relatively risk-free.
Rebranding well-known products with a new and unfamiliar parent brand run the risk
of confusing and/or alienating a brand-loyal customer base.
Cost
Last but certainly not least among factors to consider when creating your brand
architecture is cost. Maintaining a slew of separate brands is always going to be
costlier than organizing all of your offerings under a single brand.
It’s also expensive to rebrand the packaging, signage, and digital assets of multiple
brands and consolidate them under a new single entity. Intangible costs like brand
equity need to be considered as well.
Conclusion
Building a solid brand architecture isn’t easy, which is why branding agencies exist.
Ultimately, it’s about parsing the nuances of your brand and, with the help of
meticulous research, deciding how to leverage each of its offerings to best benefit
the whole.
By carefully considering each of the important factors listed above, you can mitigate
the risk associated with any revised brand architecture. Remember, the goal of
brand architecture isn’t simply to come up with clever names for your products and
services. It’s to create clarity from chaos and sharpen the edge of your ongoing
branding efforts.
