Brand Architecture is one of the essential strategies to expand any business after a point. It allows a brand to explore more fields with its sub-brands. However, each company captures the market share differently. It depends upon their business goals and objectives. Thus there are various types of architecture in the market. You can also build a suitable brand architecture based on the parent brand identity for your business. Because in this guide, we have simplified its definition and how to achieve it.
What is Brand Architecture?
Brand architecture meaning refers to the organized structure and framework of the company’s portfolio. It is a hierarchy of a parent company. It associates with other brands, sub-brand, and products or services. Simply, it can be called a whole organized structure. Here the parent brand’s name, brand value etc is connected to new products or whole new affiliated brands.
The brand architecture framework allows a company to launch new products and brands. While also helping them in brand leveraging the trust of customers over the parent brand. For instance, you trust Amazon. You won’t be hesitant to try out their other services too. Therefore, that’s how a whole architecture works. It is about launching new products and brands to generate more profit.
4 Common Brand Architecture Models
Generally, there are four types of brand architecture models. The models mentioned below are majorly seen everywhere. This means big brands will use these architecture models to scale their business. Let’s look at the different brand architecture frameworks based on the company’s goal.
1. Branded House Architecture
Branded House refers to the parent/master brand under which several other sub-brands provide different services. The master brand works as an extended chain here. In the branded house model, customers trust the parent brand, and so do their subsidiaries. One of the best examples of utilizing the “Branded House Model” is Google itself. Here all the brands have the liberty to create their room. But they aren’t allowed to operate independently.
Pros:
- Parent Brand’s trust factors automatically transfer to the sub-brands in the customer’s mindset.
- Parent brands and sub-brands complement each other’s exposure and brand equity.
- It allows the master brands to target the consumers’ pain points specifically.
- Branded houses come up with an association of parent brands. Thus, you can invest in each brand’s marketing and branding together, like umbrella branding.
Cons:
- If a single sub-brand goes wrong, it can negatively impact the image of all the sub-brands and parent brands.
- As all the sub-brands are associated with the trust of the master brand. If the master fails anywhere, all the sub-brands will be negatively impacted.
2. House of Brands Architecture
The House of Brands model refers to building new and distinct individual brands under a parent company. Here, these individual brands don’t necessarily take the benefit of the credibility of the parent company. Instead, the parent company matters for the investment purpose. But, the parent company receives all the required benefits from these companies. Many such individual brands stick a small logo of their parent company in the packaging. However, some brands decide not to reveal their parent company.
Pros:
- It allows to develop its brand positioning, identity and experience. Thus, each brand will have its image. May it be positive or negative, it won’t impact any other brand.
- This model helps companies target a specific market segment distinctively.
- This model allows the parent company to launch any brand with its separate system.
Cons:
- All the individual brands will require separate branding, marketing, and promotional costs.
- It doesn’t allow the individual brands to benefit from the parent company’s credibility.
3. Endorsed Brands Architecture
Endorsed architecture refers to a model of an endorser brand (master brand) and other sub-brands. The endorser brand promotes other sub-brands through its name. But, all the brands have their unique presence in the market. Both the endorser brand and endorsed brands get a mutual benefit from each other’s strengths. Here, the endorsed brands often mention the name of their parent company in the logo.
Pros:
- It balances the branded House and House of Brands model. Simply, it allows the sub-brands to benefit from their master brand. They create their own identity.
- This model helps the brands target a whole distinct target market. It also has the hope of cross-promotion.
- It associates the new brand with an already settled big brand. Thus, you get a competitive edge here.
Cons:
- Often the partnership between two brands is forced to achieve profit only. It can make the customers identify endorsements. Thus, you could lose the trust and authenticity of the customers.
- If any of the two brands get some negativity, it will impact both brands.
4. Hybrid Brand Architecture
Hybrid architecture refers to the combination of several architectures. In simple words, some sub-brands get their own space to grow, while some have limitations. It depends upon the performance of the brand in the market. Parent brand doesn’t force any brand; instead, they give them the freedom to do their best. For instance, if you look at the Alphabet, they give complete freedom to Google. However, some small sub-brands, including Nest, Calico, and Verily, are limited in their space.
Pros:
- Hybrid brand architecture enables the sub-brands to evolve in their own space. It depends upon their market conditions and opportunities.
- This model allows the sub-brands to create their unique identity in the market. While they also leverage the credibility of the master brand.
- It allows the brand and sub-brands for cross-promotion.
Cons:
- The hybrid architecture combines a lot of different brands. Thus, it is a very complex brand strategy to maintain different brands. It can also need to be clarified for the customers.
- Every brand will indeed require a whole different marketing, branding, and strategic efforts.
How to Develop A Brand Architecture Strategy?
Brand architecture needs to be simple as it will help the customers to understand your brand offerings better. Because complex architecture does nothing but confuses the customers. Therefore, we have correctly mentioned the brand architecture strategy in three simple steps.
1. Research
First, you have to understand your customers’ perspective toward your brand. Then, you should align their perspective with your business goals and strategies. This research will help your brand understand the architecture you need to expand your business. You can perform this research by several methods. It might include a survey, one-to-one customer interview, competitive analysis, or directly analyzing brand equity. Therefore, you should have a clear understanding of all your requirements now.
2. Strategy
Now, it comes to the strategy-building phase. Each architecture has a different approach to expanding the business. Primarily, it would help if you decided how close your parent brand and sub-brands should be. It will solve the significance of your problem in selecting an architecture model. We recommend you go through the case study of the above-mentioned examples of all the architecture models. It will help you imagine your brand vision and decide wisely based on your end goal. For instance, you will know whether your brand requires a unique identity or cross-promotion.
3. Migration
You create an outline or blueprint of your pre-decided architecture at the Migration step. This blueprint should adequately define the whole hierarchy of your brands and sub-brands. This blueprint will portray a defined picture of your architecture to your customers and stakeholders. When you migrate a whole established brand, it has a significantly higher risk factor. Thus, it would help if you adequately defined your blueprint before publicly announcing anything. Your outline should consist of the following factors:
- Each brand’s strategic role in the portfolio.
- Unique of each brand or sub-brand.
- Relationship between the master brand and sub-brands.
- Each brand’s examples of expression.
To Wrap Up
The brand architecture consists of several different models. In this guide, we have defined the four mainly used models. It can help you find the most suitable architecture model for your business expansion. We hope you like the guide and find the best architecture model for your business.