Brand architecture

Brand architecture is the structure of brands within an organizational entity. It is the way in which the brands within a company’s portfolio are related to, and differentiated from, one another. The 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 to which they belong. [Bennie,2000]

Types of brand architecture

There are three generic relationships between a master brand and sub-brands:

* "Monolithic brand or Branded house" - Examples include Virgin Group, Red Cross or Oxford University. These brands use a single name across all their activities and this name is how they are known to all their stakeholders – consumers, employees, shareholders, partners, suppliers and other parties.
* "Endorsed brands or House blend" - Like Nestle’s KitKat, Sony PlayStation or Polo by Ralph Lauren. The endorsement of a parent brand should add credibility to the endorsed brand in the eyes of consumers. This strategy also allows companies who operate in many categories to differentiate their different product groups’ positioning.
* "Product brand or House of brands" - Like Procter & Gamble’s Pampers or Henkel’s Persil. The individual sub-brands are offered to consumers, and the parent brand gets little or no prominence. Other stakeholders, like shareholders or partners, know the company by its parent brand.

ee also

*Individual branding
*Personal branding
*Emory Brand Institute
*Aspirational brand
*Brand aversion
*Brand community
*Brand engagement
*Brand loyalty
*Brand implementation
*Brand management
*Brand orientation
*Branding Faith
*Designer label
*Employer branding
*Integrated marketing communications
*Generic brand
*List of oldest companies
*Logo extraction puzzles
*Name generator
*Naming firms
*Trademark

References