One brand or multiple brands?

“Should I have one brand or multiple brands for each company division or product?”

Lately, clients have asked several versions of this question.

Many businesses start with one strong brand. If they have a range of products or services they tie these back to the parent brand. Then over time, they may get another business or they may look to develop a new product line that targets a different group of customers. At this point, they develop different brands for these new divisions. Before they know it they have a collection of different business units and a variety of products going in a variety of brand directions.

Then they have a difficult decision. Should they keep all the parts of their business aligned as one brand system or do they split them all off into individual brands with their own unique image and story.

In Brand World managing this complexity is called Brand Architecture and it looks at how all the parts of your brand or brands work together. One of the most helpful metaphors to understand this comes from David Aaker, a US marketing expert. He talks about having a Branded House or a House of Brands.

A Branded House is where you have one brand name and all the products and divisions include the master brand in their name. Eg Virgin has Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Wines, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Money and so on.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have a House of Brands. In this model, the parent company is almost invisible and the divisions or products have their own unique identities and logos. An example of this is Unilever who own many of our supermarket brands. Most people don’t know about Unilever but they do recognise Persil, Lipton, Lux, Jif, Vaseline, Choysa, Continental which are all Unilever brands.

Ups and downs of both models

A Branded House is popular for many businesses and seems the obvious choice. It creates efficiency for the company and ease of communication. The downside is that: It can be more company focussed rather than customer focussed,  it can alienate some customer groups, important products can be undervalued, and customers can be confused if a company sells very different products under the same brand. E.g. Should Ice Cream and Concrete be sold under the same brand?

A House of Brands lets you reach specific customer groups with a clearly defined and differentiated message. It allows you to be an expert in one category. It also can provide a safety buffer between brands in the case of bad press. The downside is that you need to increase marketing budgets to promote more brands, and the parent company takes a back seat.

The Branded House sits on one end of the brand architecture spectrum and the House of Brands is at the other end. In between, there are other configurations such as the Sub Brand and the Endorsed Brand. As you move across the spectrum towards a House of Brands, there is an increasing separation from the primary or master brand.

Sub Brands are still strongly connected to the master brand but all the company to create new associations, appeal to new customers or reach new niches. Sony Play Station is an example of this. 

The Endorsed Brand uses the master brand as a known or trusted name to add value to a new brand. It is like a celebrity endorsement. iPod from Apple is an example of this. 

How do you decide which way to go?

The main question to ask is ‘who is your brand or brands aimed at?’ If they are distinctly different customer profiles then you may need a house of brands. If the brands are aiming at different consumer categories then a House of Brands could be the way to go. Auto Repairs and Engineering fit into two distinct categories in the minds of customers. One would tend to be business to consumer and the other business to business. If your business provides both services you may want to consider developing two distinct brands. If you are focused on one category and customer group then the Branded House is the way to go.

Brands with a purpose connect emotionally

“What a tragedy it would be to climb the ladder of success only to find it’s leaning against the wrong wall.” Success is all about having the right purpose. This is not so much about what you are doing but why you are doing it, and is something to be thinking of when creating your brand. Brands that have a clear purpose and a deeper meaning are very attractive and resonate with their customers with authenticity.

As the world moves away from traditional mass media like radio and TV, and into the fragmented world of online channels, the job of the brand in creating its audience is that much more important. Traditional mass media tends to deliver you to an existing audience, but in the digital world, this onus falls onto the brand to attract and appeal to their ideal customers, and to stand out in the vast sea of competition. Only a few get this right.

Brands that have had success with this, have built their followers by standing for something much bigger than the products or services they sell. These brands know that people gather around ideals and causes that resonate with them, and so create their purpose around these.

A decade ago Dove turned a bland soap pack that claimed to be ‘creamy’, into a purpose-driven brand on a mission to ‘make women feel comfortable in the skin they are in, to create a world where beauty is a source of confidence and not anxiety’. They have done this in a way that feels really authentic, and so have built a loyal following of believers that are attracted to this message and purpose.

Some other examples of brands that have clear purpose and meaning are:

• TED – Ideas worth spreading. ‘We believe in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately the world.’
• FedEx – The world on time
• Amazon – to be the earth’s most customer-centric company
• Starbucks – ‘To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.’

While this sounds great for the bigger brands, you may be thinking but what about my small or medium-sized business? Well, all who are now big were once small too, and they would have faced the same challenges and successes that you do. The difference these established brands have is that they have had more energy – energy born from their desire to fulfil their purpose and make a change.

How do you dig deeper to define your purpose?

Define your big ‘why’

• Ask yourself the following questions:
• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• Why does it matter?
• This helps you work through where you are now in a practical sense and connects to your higher purpose. You are not trying to create a slogan but a clear statement of why you exist. The slogan may come later. Keep on asking yourself ‘Why does it matter?’ until you get down to your core purpose.

Define your enemy

Working out what you are fighting against can help define what you are fighting for. Are you against bad design, pollution, poor customer service, ignorance or lost potential. The list is endless.

Keep it simple

Try to wrap your thinking up in a simple statement or a few words. You want something that is easy to work with and easy to communicate. The ultimate is to get your purpose down to one word. The first word that comes to mind when you mention Volvo is ‘safety’. If you can do the same you will be doing well.

Make it emotive

You can make your purpose easier to remember if it has emotion or if it makes some kind of promise and provides hope. Emotive words such as vitality, adventure, freedom, achievement are examples of words that connect emotionally and can make a purpose pack a punch.

Defining and creating a purpose statement is just the beginning. The real exciting step is making it a reality through every part of your organisation. Getting all stakeholders onboard with your purpose, living and breathing it is the challenge of a life time – let me know how you get on?

… or people love brands that love people. It’s a simple thought but it’s one that I work hard to bring people back to. A brand doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lives in the real world, repelling competitors, and attracting customers

Some people in business start by developing a product but few start by developing the customer. ‘Build it and they will come’ is the mantra. Then you get focused on pushing that product or service to customers because you have sales targets and bills to pay. Ask yourself, how do I move from being a corporate-focused, product-focused brand to a customer, people-focused brand?

Think Small
One way you can start is to think small. In your thinking and planning create your brand for one person before you try to get hundreds or thousands of customers. Think about that one person, their fears, their pain points, where they live, what they do in their spare time, their work environment, social habits, what they read and watch and what they do in the weekend. What keeps them up at night and what do they dream about doing in the future? Then begin to imagine how your product or service will solve their problems. How does it fit into their world? The answers to these types of questions will help form systems, culture and communication that is more about your customer than you.

Create an experience that is bigger than the product.
Ask yourself ‘how can we make what we offer the best experience for our customer?’ How are they going to feel after using our product? Will they feel like a rock star celebrity or ‘just another brick in the wall’? What amazing experience are you going to provide that will cause them to talk and share with their friends? I have clients who call their customers 3 months after they buy their product to see how it was going, to make sure everything was ok. The amount of new business they generated by showing they care was astounding.

Walk in your customers shoes
Think about the journey customers take to connect with your brand. How will they make the decision to buy your product and what obstacles they have to overcome to find you? How will they hear about you? What will convince them to get in touch with you? How will they contact you? What will the experience be like when they do get in touch? Will you embrace like friends or meet with a cautious smile?

‘Gimme what I want, what I really really want’
Someone once said ‘You don’t go into a hardware store to buy a drill what you really want is a hole. Work out the outcome your customers want. When you know what they really want then you will speak a different language. Speak to the outcome that you are providing rather than the product you are selling.

When you have developed your customer journey and experience then go to a wider audience with a voice that speaks to an individual person with emotion and personality. Make your communication more like two people having a chat and you will connect with authenticity.

A good name is more valuable than gold

When you first come into the world, you’re given a name. Likely chosen by your family, this name will, more often than not, have significance and meaning attached to it. Perhaps you were named after a relative, a historical or prominent figure, or they simply liked the way it sounded. Whatever the story behind it, your name is highly valuable and shapes your personal identity.

This is the same when it comes to naming a brand. A brand name becomes a valuable business asset that stands for all the perceptions that a person can have of your business or products. Its the overarching tag that customers attach to everything you do.

“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” Proverbs

Most importantly, a brand name, like your own name, establishes identity and uniqueness.

The best names are those that are more abstract and can make a promise. For example, the battery brand Eveready makes a promise in its name; it’s energy when you need it. Names like this can act as a mini advertisement and can help sell the brand or product. Names can also be used as a proxy for what the brand represents; a piece of attention-grabbing communication that connects consumers to the brand and promises more to come.

Names that have a story or meaning behind them can reinforce the unique advantages of the brand. Google, for instance, was originally intended to be named ‘Googol’, referring to the number that is 10 to the power of 100, however was misspelled and became what it is today.

Names can similarly create their own meaning. Where the word ‘puma’ was once only associated with large wild cats, it’s now more commonly applied to sportswear. Taking a name from one context and re-appropriating it to a new context can be very beneficial when thinking about brand names.

Naming can be a formidable endeavour. To find a name is a complex and highly creative process that is underlied by marketing, research and trademark laws. Millions of names have already been registered by hundreds of thousands of companies, therefore creating and protecting a unique and recognisable name can be challenging. Here are three tips:

1. Create a criteria to judge the value of suggested names

When naming, it’s important to establish criteria and objectives from the beginning, to ascertain what kind of name will suit the brand, and what associations will be attached to the name. It must align with the brand’s narrative and strategy.

2. Generate loads of name options

When you first begin developing a name there are no stupid ideas. Don’t be afraid to think creatively. Throw all your ideas on the table.

Names can fall into a number of categories:

• historical
• geographical,
• family name,
• an abstraction of an idea or message

When generating new names you may want to think of names that fit under these categories.

3. Evaluate the suggested name with your pre-establish criteria

Examine the names in context of your pre-established criteria in step1. Consider the sound, cadence and ease of pronunciation. Remember, meaning and association build over time. The carefully crafted combination of letters you develop now can become one of your most valuable assets in the future.

Give your name meaning over time

A name can become whatever you make it. The meaning of your name and positive associations build over time.  Layers of meaning can be added to a name through the associations you put around it, the stories you tell, and the interactions people have with the brand.

Should we change our name or keep the one we have?

Should we change our name if we aren’t happy with the one we have? Before you go about changing a name you need to have very good reasons for doing it. Will it improve brand engagement? Will it be more memorable and recognisable? One of the major challenges with this is that once a name is in someone’s mind it can be very difficult to change it.

An out-of-date brand name may need to be changed in order to better reflect the brand’s evolving identity. Apple was originally known as Apple Computers, but changed its name in 2007 to facilitate their move into a broader field of electronics that encompasses more than just computers. This change also made the name more streamlined and contemporary, while still being easily recognised.

Coming up with a name is a start, giving it positive meaning and making it stand out in the crowd comes next. The carefully crafted combination of letters you develop now can become one of your most valuable assets in the future.

It seems to Tony Downing that everyone wants to stand out but no one wants to be different.

Driving through Murchison recently I noticed a pink sheep among his woollen buddies on a paddock. It brought a smile to my face and got me thinking… First, there is a very enthusiastic farmer nearby with a can of Dazzle; and second, if every sheep I saw was bright pink, would I have the same emotional response?

For many business leaders, being different is unbearable. There is safety in blending in and being normal. After 24 years of developing brand identities I’ve learnt one cardinal truth — different is good! The best thing you can do for your brand is to differentiate it. Unfortunately when the rubber-hits-the-road, many businesses lack the guts to do what it takes to stand out.

We often ask our clients ‘if your brand were a person what type of person would it be?’ We get answers like: energetic, smart, authentic, expert, the list goes on. These traits always sound like someone you would like to hang out with. Strong personalities are attractive. First, identify your strongest brand personality. Then review your brand expressions, such as: website, logo, brochures, store front, vehicles.

Ask yourself, do these express this personality? Does your environment express your personality? Do your products and services embody your personality? If not, change them to match your personality and make sure it’s your personality on steroids, your best self

I’m not talking about being a clown. People may notice a clown but they don’t buy from him. I am talking about creating
a clear picture in your mind of what your personality is. But since we are talking about clowns lets talk about Jester House Café in Tasman. I love Jester House. The personality of the owners permeates through the whole environment. It is an appealing, unforgettable experience. The art, the buildings, the menu, it is personality plus, and it works.

There are a few ways that you can boost your brand personality: Use stunning photos; write emotive copy; own a colour.

Use stunning photos. If you’re a dynamic risk-taker, do the images associated with your brand show that? Have you taken the time to get good photos that express your energy? Too many businesses have opted for unprofessional photos, taken on a cell-phone, simply to cut costs. Good, authentic photos are worth it. Hire a professional photographer. They can create something that is unique to you and will capture who you are.

Write emotive copy. Review your writing style and align it with a tone that reflects your defined brand. For some reason, exciting and dynamic businesses can become zombies when they write about themselves. Is it kiwi shyness and false humility? Nelson Tasman is one of the most magnificent places in the world, full of amazing people and clever businesses. Let’s express that amazingness in our brands.

Own a colour. Do you know what colour you are? If your dominant personality trait is positivity, then go for gold. If it is energy, go for flame red. Pick your colour and stick to it.

Creating a stand-out personality is easier than you think, because many businesses are not trying that hard. The rewards far outweigh the pain. Customers will be aware of who you are, they will remember you, they will be attracted to you, and they will keep coming back for more.

Consistency is the cornerstone to building a great brand. One simple test to see if you are communicating your brand consistently is to grab all your stationery, print out your email footer, website home page, grab a snapshot of your signs (building and vehicles) print and online ads, and anything else where your brand is represented. Then put them all on the table and stand back and check that your logo, font/s and style are all the same across the table. The results may surprise you.

When we do this exercise with new clients the results can be a wake up call. Most businesses end up with brand drift over time. Small changes creep in and before you know every point where your brand is represented is slightly different. The risk is that you end up with weak branding that gets ignored and reduces your presence in the marketplace. Every item that carries your brand is another opportunity to build your brand. Is it time for a tabletop review?

Today I’m at Semi-Permanent conference, Auckland, and it’s on the future with talks from Uber, Facebook, Google and Netflix.

One question asked how do you make a product that appeals to millions. Ethan Eismann from AirBnB answered ‘We start by designing a product that one person will love and then make it the best experience for that one person. Then we expand that to 4, then 8 then 16 and so on. We look to get the best product ingredients. For AirBnB its travel, hosts, homes, and experiences. We are aiming for transformational experiences that are memorable and magical.

Thoughts from other speakers

 “Everything we design and create has an impact socially, economically and environmentally. We need to consider all these consequences. Good design is focused, respects the limits, and solves more than one problem while not making more problems.”

– Michael Gough, Uber

“There are no sacred cows, every now and then you have to create a hamburger. Build better products with a/b testing, research and empathy.”

– Andrew Law, Netflix

“At the moment AI is about intelligent as cats and dogs. Don’t fear it, embrace it. It will empower your creative process and make you a super creative with augmented intelligence.”

– Julia Peter, Facebook

There seems to be a lot of confusion about brand, logo, and identity design. We talk to Tony Downing of Downing Creative Marketing to unpack what brand identity is.

“Effective research gives you insights into your consumers’ buying habits, removes personal bias and helps you avoid making marketing blunders.”