Your brand architecture should not be based upon your company’s internal structures. Instead, organize around customer segments or product categories.
Brand architecture must always be based upon the marketplace-in, rather than the organization-out. Don’t allow internal constructs and politics to inhibit you from structuring from the customer’s vantage point.
For example, consider a global payments technology company whose master brand has massive consumer appeal and awareness. However, because it lacked an externally focused customer segmentation strategy, the commercial segment was hamstrung from creating brand recognition and relevance for its specific audiences.
When we were brought in to create the company’s brand architecture, our recommendation was to establish a clear delineation between offerings for the consumer and commercial segments. By avoiding the “inwardly focused” blunder, this new architecture enabled the commercial business to address the different needs of segments and grow market shares.
Your brand architecture constructs must be flexible to accommodate business needs today and tomorrow.
We all know the business world is an ever-changing competitive landscape, fraught with mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs, divestitures, joint ventures, you name it. But we often hear clients say, “The old brand architecture model was so inflexible, it was simply abandoned.”
To avoid this blunder, brand architecture constructs must be responsive to market realities. They should allow brand equities to be optimally leveraged and transferred when deemed appropriate. These constructs must consider whether an existing brand can stretch into a new category or if a different brand in the portfolio is better equipped to carry the offering.
For brand architecture to be embraced by an organization, it must have the fluidity to evolve with the needs of those implementing it.
Brand architecture structures that are too complex create a conceptual divide between brands and businesses, confusing your customers and limiting your growth potential.
Your brand architecture is meant to move products and services closer to your customer, while communicating the right relationship with the brand.
Time and time again, we’ve sat in customer focus groups only to learn said customers have no idea which company sells the product in question. Customers are aware of the product, they prefer it, but unfortunately, they simply have no idea what company sells the product.
By clearly communicating the relationship between your corporate brand and your product brand, you can reduce customer confusion, ensuring future purchases and increasing market penetration.
Remove internal language from your brand architecture or risk confusing your customers from the start.
Take a moment to remember your first team meeting at your first job. Remember all the internal jargon and acronyms being used? Remember how confused you felt? Customers feel just as confused when internal vernacular is imposed upon them. Keep in mind that the internal “alphabet soup” often confuses more than it clarifies offerings.
For that matter, “brand speak” can also cloud and muddle product portfolios for your target audience. How do they know if the “premium” product is better than the “select” one? Customers don’t understand the difference between a sub-brand and a line extension, nor do they recognize that a specific color is meant to communicate a particular relationship between two offerings. Instead, the key is to use language that is easily understood by your customers.
You now know that your brand architecture must be based upon the marketplace-in rather than your organization-out. However, it must also be based upon and supportive of your organization’s business strategy.
We like to say that brand strategy is simply the external communication of the internal business strategy. Your brand architecture is the means by which the business strategy is structured, represented, and communicated to your customers. It needs to clearly communicate the business strategy, or else confusion ensues.
For example, we once worked with a company that was consolidating its sales organizations to cut costs. On a sales call with one of the company’s reps, I noted he was wearing a shirt with the consolidated company logo, while also wearing a pin representing the old sales organization. He then handed me two business cards – one old and one new. It was clear the company had not developed a brand transition strategy to effectively communicate the consolidation changes.
Don’t confuse your employees or your customers. Make sure your brand architecture supports your business strategy.
Much the same as supporting your company’s business strategy, your brand architecture must also support the culture of your organization.
Is your organization marketing-driven or sales-driven?
Is it centralized or decentralized?
Does it have a clear brand culture?
Does it have a strong corporate brand?
You may remember the marketing manager at IBM who did not want to use the IBM brand to launch its laptop offering. If you don’t, that’s because he stopped working for IBM after that recommendation. He didn’t understand the value of the IBM brand and wasn’t a champion of the organization’s culture.
For any brand architecture initiative you may undertake, make sure to have a strong internal brand champion at the table. Ideally, this is your leadership team. We know the success of implementing your brand architecture initiative is dependent upon their input and buy-in.
We once worked on a brand architecture initiative where the CEO refused to participate in any aspect of the project. Not surprisingly, the organization was paralyzed to make any bold decisions or moves, wasting the effort of the entire initiative.
Want to avoid these mistakes when structuring your brand organization? Keep these rules in mind:
Not only do we know the complexities, challenges, and pitfalls that come with any brand architecture work, we know how to make your initiative a complete success. Contact us here and let’s work together!
