A quick checklist for companies looking at Umbrella Branding/ Single Brand/ Brand Integration Strategy
1. House of Brands v/s A Branded House: choose the approach
Most consumer product conglomerates, such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Colgate-Palmolive, use the “house of brands” strategy. In other words, the product has the main brand name: Listerine, Head & Shoulders, Tylenol, and so forth. Very few consumers could accurately say which brand is owned by which company.’
On the contrary companies like Samsung and Sony still put their name on everything, but iPod and Zune are the dominant brands, leaving Apple and Microsoft to a lower-level brand. This is because people can only associate one brand with a product. A ‘branded house’ approach suits the companies where product life is expected to be longer. The ‘reliability over a time’ becomes the guiding principle for brand value.
2. B2B umbrella brand promotion in consumer space creates inexplicable demand pullAccenture sells nothing to consumers. But its ‘Performance Delivered’ campaign, backed by the advertising presence of Tiger Woods, has created a positive awareness of the brand among hundreds of thousands of people who may be working for the enterprises to which Accenture consults (or is seeking to consult). And the motivational value of inviting top customers, prospects and employees to golf events involving Tiger cannot be underestimated.
Intel is the ultimate ingredient brand. Zero sales to end consumers yet Intel built a consumer demand pull for its chips that required every PC manufacturer to incorporate them and to advertise Intel Inside on their products and in their ads.
3. Brand is an idea, Branding is a mindset
While assimilating an umbrella brand, it is important to step aside for a while from the existing brand portfolio. In the B2B enterprises, the brand portfolio is usually consisting of the existing company names/legal entities. While consolidating or creating a new umbrella brand, one can choose to create/architect a totally new name which makes lot of future sense but has little connection to the existing entity names. Equally important is to create a ‘brand thinking’ mindset in the company and the stakeholder, who may be too used to thinking ‘products’, ‘technologies’ and ‘business verticals’.
4. Create a unique character, written down and passionately curetted
Al and Laura Ries, in their book The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, say that successful brands associate a ‘target concept’ (or a core character) with their brand, and that sub brands and super brands are recipes for disaster. Witness the lack of success with brands that try to be everything to everyone: Yahoo, GM, Ford, and to a lesser extent Hyundai, Yamaha, and Mitsubishi have not established a dominant foothold in their spaces because consumers have not associated a ‘key concept’ to their brand.
Samsung believes that their brand has four essential values- First one is technology value because they are a manufacturing company. The second is the product value. The third is marketing value and the fourth one is reputation value.
5. Architect the brand to be driven by Customer Centric World (and not Technology)
Organise your portfolio in a customer-centric way — for instance, ensure that the portfolio strategy drives your R&D strategy rather than allowing R&D to determine how your company goes to market. Both AT&T and IBM saw strong business growth as a result of this shift in mentality. Vertical wise split helps internal organization but not the brand penetration and recall.
6. Create clarity of offerings through architecture
Make sure that your product/service offering is clear to both your customers and your employees. If they are not able to understand what you are offering, it is a signal that the current architecture is not working. Organic expansion of enterprises usually results into an obfuscated and overlapping view of the business offerings, which needs an overhaul at the time of rebranding.
7. Differentiate and Cater to both- Product Buyers v/s Solution Buyers
· “Product Buyers” look for specific product sets and sophisticated components and thus require a wide variety of distinct products.
• “Solutions buyers” are less expert and seek holistic business solutions that are all-inclusive and off-the shelf.
Future is about dynamic companies who can sense the consumer needs faster and can bring solutions to the table, the fastest. A brand stitched around this core thought will generate internal energy to be more efficient through the value chain.
8. With Single brand, the measurement indices related to ROI on marketing becomes more tangible
Typical engineer’s mind usually distastes the grand marketing strategies and expenditures thereof. They understand the language of ‘selling’ much better. In a growing B2B enterprise, unifying the brand brings better indices of measurement of ROI on marketing spends and consumer satisfaction thereof.
9. Use the slow-down to promote the renewed brand
Samsung invested in product innovation way back in 1997 when Asian Crisis was on. Samsung also took up the Olympic Sponsorship when the company was almost bankrupt. All this paid off.
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Author: Manoj Kothari, Founder Director and Principal Strategist at Onio Design Pvt. Ltd., Pune, India
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Most consumer product conglomerates, such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Colgate-Palmolive, use the “house of brands” strategy. In other words, the product has the main brand name: Listerine, Head & Shoulders, Tylenol, and so forth. Very few consumers could accurately say which brand is owned by which company.’
On the contrary companies like Samsung and Sony still put their name on everything, but iPod and Zune are the dominant brands, leaving Apple and Microsoft to a lower-level brand. This is because people can only associate one brand with a product. A ‘branded house’ approach suits the companies where product life is expected to be longer. The ‘reliability over a time’ becomes the guiding principle for brand value.
2. B2B umbrella brand promotion in consumer space creates inexplicable demand pullAccenture sells nothing to consumers. But its ‘Performance Delivered’ campaign, backed by the advertising presence of Tiger Woods, has created a positive awareness of the brand among hundreds of thousands of people who may be working for the enterprises to which Accenture consults (or is seeking to consult). And the motivational value of inviting top customers, prospects and employees to golf events involving Tiger cannot be underestimated.
Intel is the ultimate ingredient brand. Zero sales to end consumers yet Intel built a consumer demand pull for its chips that required every PC manufacturer to incorporate them and to advertise Intel Inside on their products and in their ads.
3. Brand is an idea, Branding is a mindset
While assimilating an umbrella brand, it is important to step aside for a while from the existing brand portfolio. In the B2B enterprises, the brand portfolio is usually consisting of the existing company names/legal entities. While consolidating or creating a new umbrella brand, one can choose to create/architect a totally new name which makes lot of future sense but has little connection to the existing entity names. Equally important is to create a ‘brand thinking’ mindset in the company and the stakeholder, who may be too used to thinking ‘products’, ‘technologies’ and ‘business verticals’.
4. Create a unique character, written down and passionately curetted
Al and Laura Ries, in their book The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, say that successful brands associate a ‘target concept’ (or a core character) with their brand, and that sub brands and super brands are recipes for disaster. Witness the lack of success with brands that try to be everything to everyone: Yahoo, GM, Ford, and to a lesser extent Hyundai, Yamaha, and Mitsubishi have not established a dominant foothold in their spaces because consumers have not associated a ‘key concept’ to their brand.
Samsung believes that their brand has four essential values- First one is technology value because they are a manufacturing company. The second is the product value. The third is marketing value and the fourth one is reputation value.
5. Architect the brand to be driven by Customer Centric World (and not Technology)
Organise your portfolio in a customer-centric way — for instance, ensure that the portfolio strategy drives your R&D strategy rather than allowing R&D to determine how your company goes to market. Both AT&T and IBM saw strong business growth as a result of this shift in mentality. Vertical wise split helps internal organization but not the brand penetration and recall.
6. Create clarity of offerings through architecture
Make sure that your product/service offering is clear to both your customers and your employees. If they are not able to understand what you are offering, it is a signal that the current architecture is not working. Organic expansion of enterprises usually results into an obfuscated and overlapping view of the business offerings, which needs an overhaul at the time of rebranding.
7. Differentiate and Cater to both- Product Buyers v/s Solution Buyers
· “Product Buyers” look for specific product sets and sophisticated components and thus require a wide variety of distinct products.
• “Solutions buyers” are less expert and seek holistic business solutions that are all-inclusive and off-the shelf.
Future is about dynamic companies who can sense the consumer needs faster and can bring solutions to the table, the fastest. A brand stitched around this core thought will generate internal energy to be more efficient through the value chain.
8. With Single brand, the measurement indices related to ROI on marketing becomes more tangible
Typical engineer’s mind usually distastes the grand marketing strategies and expenditures thereof. They understand the language of ‘selling’ much better. In a growing B2B enterprise, unifying the brand brings better indices of measurement of ROI on marketing spends and consumer satisfaction thereof.
9. Use the slow-down to promote the renewed brand
Samsung invested in product innovation way back in 1997 when Asian Crisis was on. Samsung also took up the Olympic Sponsorship when the company was almost bankrupt. All this paid off.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Manoj Kothari, Founder Director and Principal Strategist at Onio Design Pvt. Ltd., Pune, India
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