Brand architecture: every brand in its place.
When a company grows through new products, units, acquisitions or mergers, someone has to decide which name signs what. Brand architecture organises that family and sets how each brand leans on the others.
What brand architecture is
In strategy, architecture is the hierarchy of the system: it says which name signs what, and what each brand lends to and receives from the others.
A merger, a succession, an IPO or joining a group change the size and the owner of the brand. What it means to the people who buy it does not necessarily change.
- Parent brand
- The brand that gives origin and endorsement to the others.
- Lines and products
- What is sold under the parent brand or under a name of its own.
- Business units
- Operations with a different audience or market, closer to or further from the parent brand.
When brand architecture comes onto the agenda
- 01A new unit, line or product is about to launch, and it has to be decided which name it carries.
- 02The company has bought or merged with another, and there are two brands for the same customer.
- 03The portfolio has grown, and the customer no longer understands what belongs to whom.
- 04The company has joined a group and needs to decide how much of the group shows in the brand.
How an architecture project runs
- 01 Portfolio analysis
- The survey of every brand, line, product and unit, and of what each one sells and to whom.
- 02 Research and diagnosis
- Research defines what creates trust and has to stay.
- 03 Hierarchy
- Who the parent brand is, what counts as a line, product or unit, and how each one leans on the others.
- 04 Naming
- When the new hierarchy calls for new names, they are born from the same positioning.
- 05 Guidelines
- The rules for the current brands and for those still to be born, documented in the brandbook.
What your company gets
- Portfolio analysis
- Brand architecture map
- Criteria for new brands
- Naming of lines and units
- Visual system for the brand family
- Brand guidelines
Brand families, organised.
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“After an excellent experience with Rodrigo and the BR/BAUEN team at a previous company, I couldn't think of any other team I wanted to collaborate with to build out the NewCastle brand. Their work illustrated that NewCastle Gold was a serious market contender for investors and companies looking to acquire or merge with a junior asset.”
Director, Communities & Social Performance, Rio Tinto · formerly Director of IR & Corporate Communications, NewCastle Gold
How do you prepare a brand for a moment of revolution?
By deciding first what cannot change. Hercules was repositioned within Ansell for its internationalisation; NewCastle Gold was renewed for its debut on the Toronto stock exchange. In both cases, research defined what created trust and had to stay, and the rest was redesigned for the new size.
What is naming?
Naming is the strategic design process of choosing a name. It starts from positioning, defines the territory (descriptive, suggestive or abstract), generates alternatives and filters them by registration, pronunciation, memorability and context.
What are stakeholders in branding, and why listen to them?
They're the people affected by the brand decision: customers, team, retailers, partners, investors and shareholders. Each group sees the brand from a different place, and the project has to work for all of them at once. Hearing them at the start avoids the surprise at launch: what leadership decided has already been tested with the people who will live with the decision.
How much does a brand architecture project cost?
The investment depends on the programme, of 3, 6 or 9 months, the size of the company and the depth of the research. The programme and the investment are defined from the first conversation, when we understand where the brand stands and the goal of the project.
How do we start a project with BR/BAUEN?
Request a meeting through the form on this page or via WhatsApp. In the first conversation we understand where the brand stands and suggest the most suitable programme. We reply within two business days.