Master branded or house of brands? The dreaded question that any Group brand will face at some point in their journey. And, like our client, when you’re expanding at a rate of knots, acquiring other brands and new audiences, it becomes even harder. What’s more, it begs the question – should we have a new name?
Our client came to us with this exact dilemma. “Some areas of our organisation have really distinct personalities. Would an endorsed master branded proposition create difficulties?”, they asked.
We set to, unravelling their brand architecture journey to date and understanding their future growth plans. We scrutinised all areas of the organisation, brands, offerings, audiences and stakeholders.
Then, we got visual. Words aren’t enough – we needed to draw a physical map of all the entities in question. Starting simply, we figured it out in black and white, plotting labelled boxes onto a chart for two viable naming and architecture routes.
Collectively deciding we needed a new name, we honed our workings. We drew up our map in much more detail, showing brand names and logos, to visualise the Group’s full hierarchy and make sense of the different identities in play: master brand, sub-brands, unbranded, stand-alone brands, present, and future acquisitions… Which identities should be dissolved? Which should stay? Which might take on a new brand, and how?
Now we needed a workshop. An immersive session with our client, talking through our recommendations and most importantly, getting their input. “Wow”, they said as we unrolled our enormous print out and stuck it on the wall. There it was – their future business in colour, hanging in front of them.
In many brand architecture cases, ‘one size does not fit all’. So, we got to work with our trusty marker pens, tweaking and adapting our model with their help. Together, we arrived at a solution that would be both bullet proof and future proof.
Now we’d cracked this, the rest of the journey could begin…
