Brand Architecture and Brand Structure

"If you want to build high towers,
pay much attention to the foundation."
Anton Bruckner

Brands need an Architect, a Builder, and Solid Scaffolding

Economic dynamics lead to companies merging, forging brand alliances, or turning individual brands into brand families. Multi-stage and complex systems of umbrella brands and brand alliances ensue. Objectives and controlling mechanisms should also be developed for brand structures, in the same way as for individual brands.

 

Be it product or service: brand extension, brand bundling, umbrella brand or individual brand – flexibility and synergy are the keywords that frequently arise. On the one hand, there is the complexity of brand relations, on the other hand, the diversity of possible solutions. There is no universal answer to your questions involving brand structures, but there is an individually suitable constellation for your brand system. Trust the academic knowledge of marketmind and our methods for deducing the ideal brand architecture, such as the integration/isolation portfolio, which also considers customers, employees, and stakeholders besides your target groups, before we support you as architect, builder, and structural engineer of your brand system.

Questions that we can answer together with you:

• Which partners are ideal for a co-branding alliance?
• How far and into which product categories can a brand be extended? 
• Which products can be integrated into an effective umbrella brand hierarchy which bundles advertising funds and uses loyalty transfers in order to increase sales?
• How do individual elements of a brand structure mutually influence each other? Which links within the brand structure need to be strengthened, which must be weakened?
• What is the ideal budget split (e.g. between advertising the umbrella brand and advertising for individual product brands)? 
• Which deviations can be found between the intended brand structure and the actual brand structure perceived by consumers?
• Which instruments can be used to control a brand structure effectively?
• At what point does a brand hierarchy become too complex?
• How is it possible to ensure that the consumer uses the brand structure to learn the structure of offerings and the structure of offerings to learn the brand structure?