Brand Architecture

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.
Like most marketing topics, I could write on a book on this. As such, I’ve
left out some nuance, but I’ve tried to provide enough information to be a
useful jumping off point.
Here are some short definitions for key concepts to get us started:
Master brand: A top-level corporate brand that encapsulates other branded
products and services.
Brand extension: a product or service launched by a known brand name,
where the extension is in a different category than the brand’s other
products or services.
Below are the three most common types of Brand Architecture:

1. Branded House – This offers a very logical path to brand extensions

and new brands.  In a branded house, the master brand is always
present and is easily linked to and leveraged by extensions. A good
example is FedEx. FedEx Kinko’s provides very different (but
complimentary) services than the master FedEx brand, but is easily
linked back to FedEx, and therefore shares its credibility.

2. House of Brands – This insulates and protects the master brand from
brand extensions and in turn protects brands from each other. A house
of brands also allows for a Master Brand to have competing brands in
the same segments.  A good example is Proctor and Gamble. If Crest,
for instance, had some kind of brand crisis, none of the other brands
would be affected.
 3. Hybrid or Endorsing Brand – This is a more flexible way to package
brands under a master brand. Brand extensions are given separate
identities and are associated with the master brand, or not, depending
on the context. This gives you the freedom to have independent
strategies for the brand extensions, but to also use the equity of the
master brand when it’s convenient. A good example is Toyota with the
Lexus and Scion brands.

These three types are the most common, and they each have different
strengths and weaknesses, as I allude to above. Deciding the right structure
for your brand takes an extensive amount of research, and an in-
depth understanding of your position, offerings, strategy. You can read more
about these topics below, or contact us if you’re interested in talking about
this further.
More on Branding

BRAND EXPERIENCE     BRAND IDENTITY    BRAND POSITION    

BRAND PROMISE
Further Reading:

 Confusing Brand with Brand Identity

 7 Essential Not-Technically-Marketing Books for Business
Leaders

Brand Architecture Important

Remember in first grade when you had to create a family tree? You start at the top of the tree
with your great, great grandparents, work downward to great Aunt Rudy and Uncle Alphie, and
eventually to the bottom – you! Everyone on that tree is related by blood, yes, but everyone is
still unique.

Think of a company’s brand architecture as their family tree — they are all connected, but likely
look a little different from one another.

Now that you’re reminiscing about the woes of your last family reunion, lets dig deeper into the
importance of a consistent brand architecture and all of the possible brand family layouts.

What Is Brand Architecture?

Simply put, brand architecture is the relationship between brands within an organization and
how they interact with one another.
As organizations grow and appeal to different audiences through different product lines or
company acquisitions, brand architecture is the key organizational system that makes sure each
type of product or company is intuitively linked with the right audience.

Why Is Brand Architecture Important?

No matter how many products or services you offer, think about how your target audience will
recognize each of them. Brand architecture helps you define what that relationship is, and helps
your brand stay organized internally.

It’s a road map for brand identity, development and design, and increases flexibility for product
or service expansion in the future. From a messaging and communications standpoint, an
organized brand architecture helps you reach your target market for each product or service that
you offer.

And no, your brand is not too small to benefit from brand architecture. The ability to uniquely
pair your products with the right target audiences through branding is a key element in
positioning your organization for healthy marketing and healthy growth.

What Are the Different Types of Brand

Architecture?
There are four main types of brand architecture:

 House of Brands
 Endorsed Brands
 Sub Brand
 Branded House
The main difference between each type of brand architecture is the dominance and emphasis of
the parent or umbrella brand:
House of brands offers the most flexible architecture by detaching the parent brand from other
‘standalone’ child brands, while, on the other end of the spectrum, a branded house closely
incorporates the parent brand into every child brand.

How Do You Choose Between Brand

Architecture Types?
The goal of brand architecture is clarity in storytelling: aligning your own aspirations and
authenticity as an organization with the desires of your audience.
If you’re able to add a third dimension – becoming distinct in your space – you’re positioning
yourself to own the right perceptions. That’s all we define branding as: what perceptions do you
own?

 
A Helpful Psychological Principle
In Rory Sutherland’s Ted Talk Perspective Is Everything, he explains that in the days of DVDs,
you would go to the store, see a combination DVD player & TV, and, without knowing anything
about the quality, assume it’s generally a bad DVD player and a bad TV.
Instead of buying the combo DVD & TV, you’d walk out of the store with one of each.