Brand architecture consists of the building plans that allow your organization effectively expand into different niches and appeal to various target markets without losing your brand identity and gaining more market share than your competitors.

An effective brand architecture helps you leverage the positive reputation of your main brand to gain equity for the sub-brands. It blends your multiple brand offerings to effectively leverage the relationship between your brand products or services, identity, and personality.

Here’s a complete guide on brand architecture with real-life examples to help you choose the best model.

Why Is Brand Architecture Important?

Brand architecture is the structure of a brand that connects the parent or umbrella brand with the sub-brands and explains the relationship between them. 

Having a brand architecture allows you to gain more customers for sub-brand brands while also managing your brand reputation by meeting and exceeding customer expectations across all of your brands.

A well-structured brand architecture also helps you understand the role of your parent brand and how it affects your sub-brands. This will enable you to develop strategies that will maximize the strengths of each sub-brand to gain more brand equity and have a favorable brand attitude with customers.

Another advantage of designing a brand architecture is that it helps you cater to different niches and target audiences across all your brands.

What Are the Key Components of Brand Architecture

• Master Brand

It’s the main brand for your organization, and typically has higher brand recognition and recall than other sub-brands. The master brand could be the original brand from the first product and services or the company that acquired a brand.

The company’s products and services usually carry the logo and name of the master brand. The sub-brands leverage the brand reputation of the master brand to acquire a larger market share.

A good example of a master brand is Intel. For example, Intel also has several sub-brands under it like Intel Pentium, Intel Xeon, core i3, core i5, core i7, and more.

Other examples of brands that operate the master brand architecture are Apple, Nike, and more.

• Sub Brands

These are brands under the main brand. They have their unique name and sometimes even logo but they still carry the brand name of the master brand.

Aside from sharing brand assets like logos and names with the master brand, sub-brands usually share the same values as the main brand. Their brand personality may be different because there’s a different vision and mission for them but essentially, they have the same values as the main brand.

For example, Converse and Jordans are sub-brands of the Nike brand. Converse customers are mostly people interested in skating or casual footwear, while Jordans are tailored to people interested in basketball.

• Parent Brand

A parent brand is a brand that owns or manages several sub-brands or divisions. Each sub-brand or sub-division operates independently but is marketed and managed under the parent brand.

In most cases, sub-brands under the parent company have their own brand identity and don’t necessarily depend on the parent company for brand recognition. Nescafe, for example, is a sub-brand of Nestle that has independent brand recognition and identity from its parent brand.

• Umbrella Brand

An umbrella brand is a single brand that sells multiple products under its brand name regardless of its category. It’s a brand strategy in which a company uses a single, overarching brand name for all of its products or services.

For example, Procter & Gamble uses the P&G umbrella brand for all of its products, including Tide laundry detergent, Pampers diapers, and Charmin toilet paper.

Types of Brand Architecture

• Branded House

The branded house brand architecture model is a type of brand architecture in which a company uses a single, overarching brand name to represent the company as a whole. It markets all its product lines under the same name.

In most cases, when using the branded house strategy the brands are not independent of one another. The sub-brands share the name and values of the master brand. So, brands operating the branded house architecture usually have the same look, brand voice, tone, and more.

Examples: Apple, FedEx, Nivea, Colgate, and more

• House of Brands

The house of brands architecture features multiple brands that work independently of one another and are most likely unrelated to different brand identities. Unlike the branded house, the house of brand architecture doesn’t emphasize the brand name so much.

Sub-brands under the house of brands can still leverage the brand recognition of the umbrella brand to gain more brand equity. However, it can be a bit more complex to operate as each sub-brand needs an independent brand strategy for each brand’s target audience.

Examples: P&G, L’oreal, and Unilever

• Endorsed Brands

The endorsed brand architecture is similar to the branded house architecture but instead of marketing all its product under one name, it supports the sub-brand by attaching the parent or master brand name to it.

The sub-brand and the parent or master brand have a mutualist relationship, they benefit from one another’s brand identity, which gives legitimacy and authority to the sub-brands and even more credibility for the parent or master brand.

Also, unlike houses of brands, the endorsed brands often operate within the same sector but provide different products for different target audiences. So, this model doesn’t push all sub-brands under the master brand like the branded house, and neither does it have an entirely different brand personality and identity from the master brand like the house of brands.

Examples: McDonald’s (McDonald’s Big Mac, McDonald’s McFlurry, and McDonald’s Happy Meal), Nike ( Nike Air, Nike Jordan, and Nike Flynit)

Brand Architecture Strategies

Each architecture model needs a strategy to be successful. Here’s how to develop an effective strategy to ensure your brand pulls off whichever brand architecture model you choose

• Branded House Strategy

The goal of the branded house strategy is to have a strong brand recall and recognition across all sub-brands by leveraging the reputation of the master brand. So, it uses a single master brand name for all its product and services.

Read More: What is Brand Recall, and Why Is It Important?

The branded house strategy operates on simplicity, customers are more likely to recall brands that are associated with brands they already know than ones they don’t.  

A major advantage of this type of brand architecture presents the sub-brand products with as much credibility as the master brand. It also makes it easy to launch new sub-brands without having to put in so much marketing effort for brand awareness.

If customers have a great experience with one of the products from your brands and you launch a new product they want, they are more willing to try it because they already have a positive attitude toward your brand.

However, the branded house strategy has its downsides. If one of the brands suffers a negative brand perception, customers are likely to carry the same perception to other sub-brands.

It can also limit the brand to the same niche, not allowing the brand to explore different target markets.

Read Also – Brand Reputation Management: Everything You Need To Know

• Endorsed Brand Strategy

With the endorsed brand strategy of the parent brand, the parent brand supports the sub-brands by allowing them to carry the brand name even if it’s an independent product line. This strategy allows the sub-brands to target different niches and target markets but mostly under the same sector.

Rather than introducing a completely new brand to people, the sub-brand thrives on the reputation of the parent brand. Like the branded house strategy, the sub-brands thrive on the reputation and perception of the parent brand.

However, the endorsed brand strategy also has its downsides. A major one is if the brand reputation of the parent brand takes a hit, there’s a high likelihood, the sub-brands will suffer too.

Also, the endorsed brand model only works well when the products of the brands are within the same sector; if they aren’t the parent brand doesn’t have enough authority to endorse the sub-brand. So, the strategy limits the kind of products and services the parent brand can endorse, which limits the niche and target markets they can explore.

• House of Brands Strategy

The house of brands strategy markets multiple products and services under a different brand name. The products could be related or completely unrelated allowing the parent company to explore different niches effortlessly.

The goal of the house of brand strategy is to build different brand identities for each product or service but provides credibility to the products with the parent company. The main advantage this strategy has over other brand strategies is that it allows you to develop different brand identities for each sub-brand and allows you to reach different market segments without friction.

Also, unlike the branded house or endorsed brand strategy, the reputation of the brands are independent of one another. So, a negative brand perception of a particular product or brand doesn’t spread across the brand.

But like every brand architecture, the house brand also has its disadvantages. The strategy doesn’t necessarily help the sub-brands in terms of brand awareness and customer loyalty.

The house of brand model doesn’t carry the umbrella brand name, so it doesn’t always help with brand recognition, which means the sub-brands have to strive for their brand equity. This means independent marketing efforts for each brand, which are more expensive and less effective in most cases.

• Hybrid Brand Strategy

Most large multi-brand comparisons operate the hybrid brand architecture to effectively leverage brand reputation while incurring minimal clap black if any brand suffers a negative reputation or attitude.

The company can maintain a diversified portfolio of brands under its own name and others with different brand names. It provides more flexibility for the brand when they want to create brand extensions and minimize marketing costs.

A good example of a brand that adopts the hybrid brand architecture model is Amazon with sub-brands like AmazonBasics, Mama Bear, AmazonFresh, Zappos, and more.

Formplus Templates for Specialists

Creating the most suitable brand architecture for your brand requires effective market research with effective data collection and analysis that will enable you to gain insights into how your target audience perceives you, and how much recognition you have among your target audience.

The data collected from your market research will enable you to carefully craft and maintain a positive brand image tailored to your target audience across all your brands.

Here’s how you use Formplus to achieve a positive brand image and build an effective brand architecture

• It enables you to understand how your customers and potential see and feel about your brand with brand attitude surveys.
•  Allows you to assess how well your target market will recognize your brands and products and use the insights to develop strategies to gain more recognition in the market.
• It helps you see the uniqueness, strength, and weakness of each brand you manage. Insights from your brand attributes survey enable you to refine your marketing strategies to operate a successful brand across your organization.
• You can effectively manage your brand reputation by assessing customer satisfaction with your brand and using their feedback to improve their experience with your products and brands as a whole.
• Know how much of the market share you have and gain insight into what you can do better to gain a larger market share than your competitors.

For You: 40 Market Research Survey Templates | Free Online Forms

Conclusion

Brand architecture models help you develop strategies to effectively manage new product launches or acquisitions. Each type of brand acquisition model has its pros and potential cons.

The best brand architecture model to use for your brand depends on your target market and the type of products and services you offer. So, before going for a specific brand architecture model ensure you’ve done enough market research that will allow you to build successful and long-term brand strategies.