Welcome to Marketing Chronicles. A newsletter where marketers come for expert industry commentary at the intersection of strategy and creativity — every Wednesday sent before daybreak. If you like what you see, join us for free.

In this edition:

• Column: An Introduction To Brand Architecture

• Inspiration: Visit Oslo’s “Is it even a city?”

• Timeless Wisdom: Camus on The Price of Being “Normal”

PS: I’m going on a 2-week break. Expect the next Marketing Chronicles newsletter to come on August 28th, 2024!

Column: An Introduction To Brand Architecture

Today I’d like to say a few words about brand architecture.

Yes, the mysterious topic that every marketer eventually runs into and seldom is prepared to face.

The term “brand architecture” came from a metaphor that aimed to paint a picture of how companies need a foundation, structures, roles, relationships and even the idea that at times some refurbishing, in order to be successful.

It followed the engineering-forward term “brand systems”, which frankly didn’t quite catch on.

Today, you might hear people calling it other names, as well, such as “brand hierarchy”, “brand portfolio strategy”, among others.

But the bottom line remains the same: it’s about building and optimizing a portfolio of brands that aims to enhance and enable the business strategy.

I won’t be able to cover everything in one column, but I’ll touch on some fundamental principles that might help you guide your company in thinking through and formulating their very own brand architecture.

Your Brand Portfolio Should Work For You, Not The Other Way Around

Oftentimes I’ll see startups launching their company with a handful of brands.

It leaves me wondering: what can multiple brands solve at this stage in the game where such a company hasn’t even secured a minuscule share of the market that a single brand cannot?

I’ve even seen founders using their brand architecture as a differentiator.

That’s right, so we need to rewind things a bit and first understand what a portfolio of brands should do for your business.

For starters, never launch a business with multiple brands. There might be exceptions out there (although I cannot think of any), but ultimately having multiple brands at this stage in the game only overcomplicates things.

You’ll need to have multiple P&Ls, more marketing budget to build them in the market, and likely additional marketing staff to manage all these moving pieces.

It adds unnecessary weight at a time when you’re still trying to take off.

Focus on one brand and give it the resources it requires to flourish.

Now, bigger companies might have reached a point where they see opportunities to expand into new categories, have developed a new tech that warrants its own sub-brand, or there might be a competitor starting to bite at their ankles that could be neutralized with a “flanker brand”.

These are all highly strategic decisions that have massive implications.

So, developing a brand portfolio strategy typically involves one or several of the following:

• Adding, discontinuing, or prioritizing brands or sub-brands

• Extending a brand into a new category with a descriptor or a sub-brand, or as an endorser

• Extending a brand into a super-premium or value space

• Using a corporate brand as an offering, or expanding its use as an endorser

• Developing brand alliances in the market

• Defining or associating with a new category or sub-category

• Creating and/or dialing up a branded differentiator, a branded feature, an ingredient or technology, service, or program that differentiates

• Developing a distinctive brand asset through a campaign, branded sponsorship, product promotion, or other entities that are linked to the target brand adding associations, interest, and energy.

This list isn’t exhaustive but it gets the point across. There are a lot of valid strategic reasons to add, remove or extend brands in one’s portfolio and that takes serious thinking and foresight in order to be successful.

Diagnosing Brand Portfolio Problems

While the above might seem overwhelming, once you identify what problems you’re dealing with, determining which options could work for you gets a lot easier.

It’s important to note that having a brand architecture problem doesn’t mean that you only have 3 options to remedy it: adding, removing, or extending.

Managing a portfolio of brand involves much more than new product development, line extensions and brand collabs.

Budget Allocation

The first place to start is looking at how much budget each brand in your portfolio currently commands.

Some smaller brands might have higher profit margins than others so they could benefit from an over-indexed level of funding compared to its counterparts. Meanwhile more mature brands that serve as cash cows for the business might be overfunded and require just “maintenance” budget to retain their position in the market.

On the other hand you might have a “linchpin” brand, which is a small brand that could be leveraged as a strategic gateway for a major future business area that the company envisions as a key area for growth. These brands could benefit from slow and gradual increases in budget allocation over the years in order to realize the vision of the business.

Distinctive Brand Assets

I’ve already talked extensively about DBAs in past columns — you can find them here and here — as these are critical pieces of the puzzle for the success of any brand, B2C and B2B alike.

These brand assets often serve as energizers for the brand in question, and help bridge the gap between brand-building initiatives and more targeted sales activations. Characters, sounds, shapes, etc. are some examples of DBAs.

But developing these assets is something that needs to be considered in the greater context of the portfolio of brands. For example, if you’re Intel and you decide the develop a sound DBA (listen to the iconic Intel sound here), then you must also consider how might this DBA be used across sub-brands or endorsed brands.

Is your DBA distinctive and famous enough that could serve as an energizer asset for new line extensions? If not, you might want to consider investing more heavily into mass marketing to get its levels of fame up before deciding to launch a new sub-brand that will rely heavily on such distinctive assets to take off.

The biggest problem with innovations is that they oftentimes are pulled off the market before they’ve had a chance to flourish. This could be due to underinvestment or simply just lack of patience.

Portfolio Confusion

Confusion about what brands mean for the customer at the moment of purchase often derive from lack of proper internal portfolio planning.

Sometimes there may be an agreement in place that forces brand managers to prioritize certain brands over others, the organization might be too inward looking effectively becoming oblivious to how consumers see their company from the outside, or there may simply be an overly excited manager wanting to “leave their mark” on the business at hand.

All of these are bad, and must be addressed first before anything else can continue.

Being clear about which brand is the master brand, which are the sub-brands, or endorser brands, or which brand has the potential to become an umbrella brand, and so on is imperative to be aligned on internally first before funneling any resources into building them out.

There’s no “formula” to guide which path to take here, but as one works through identifying their problems, suitable ways forward begin to become clearer.

Beware of Over-Simplistic Solutions

While simplicity and clarity are the most effective remedy to building a healthy portfolio of brands, the way to get there isn’t always simple.

Too often I see brand consultants listing out the same frameworks with the same examples and telling their clients that they must pick one.

That is inaccurate.

The best brand portfolios out there have a combination of all of the above, and more. It all depends on the needs of the business.

This facet of brand management has been widely written about, namely by David Aaker, also known as the Godfather of Brand Architecture.

If you’re interested in learning more about this topic I highly recommend the book “Brand Portfolio Strategy” by David Aaker. In it he unpacks several aspects of this complex minefield and provides great mental frameworks to evaluate your existing brand architecture.

Stay tuned for more columns from me on this topic!

Inspiration: Visit Oslo’s “Is it even a city?”

Most tourism campaigns are self-boasting. They try to convince you as to why their country or city is the best place to visit.

They list all the amazing things they have — museums, the outdoors, nightlife, culture — and in the end you’re left wondering which city you’ve just watch an ad for.

Which is why this Visit Oslo campaign is an absolute masterpiece.

They frame all the amazing things about Oslo through a sarcastic lens.

The whole premise of the ad is that we’ve come to a point where we like to put ourselves through absolute hell just to say we’ve visited a certain place. And Europe is arguably the worst place for that.

Long lines, expensive dinners, excessive planning to get around, etc.

But not Oslo. So, is it even a city?

Timeless Wisdom: Camus on The Price of Being “Normal”

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” — Albert Camus

More of PPA:

• 🤝 Connect with Pedro on LinkedIn and/or X

• 🍻 Come by the WJ office for a brew

• 💌 In case you missed it:

  • Fostering A Culture Of Creativity In Efficient Times

  • Strategic Thinkers Are Playing A Different Game

  • What Is Your Product Hired To Do?

PPA 

Pedro Porto Alegre is a seasoned marketing professional with in-depth experience building brand and communications strategies for top-tier B2C and B2B organizations across Canada. His repertoire extends from crafting and executing integrated multi-media brand marketing campaigns to the commercialization of performance-driven innovations for multimillion-dollar and nascent brands alike.