What is Brand architecture and what are its advantages?

What is Brand Architecture?

Brand Architecture is an important part of any company and can be referred to as a building plan. The main factor that helps in making a strong and durable brand is its brand architecture.

• It is the responsibility of brand architecture to make sure that every chunk fits its required place in the greater picture.
• The brand architecture makes the structural plans, assures that the work is seamless, and adheres to a definite time-period.
• It’s responsibility is to create guidelines and make sure that those are being followed.
• If a company is planning on a new launch of products or is extending its current product line, then a competent brand architecture will prove to be a boon for the company.
• It is the bridge between the employees of a company and the customers used to maintain a perfect and harmonious balance between them.

Brand architectures have become an integrated part of any company and they have proved their worth to the company repeatedly. They are a direct link between the main brands and the sub brands. For example, Procter & Gamble or P&G is the main brand and has many sub-brands like Oral B, Olay, and Tideetc. under its umbrella. It is here the efficiency of a good architecture comes into force as it maintains a direct link between all these brands. It is his responsibility to see that all the brands are continuing to grow and move forward.

The brand architecture is also accountable for maintaining the loyalty of its consumers. For this purpose, they invent new ideas to attract their customer base. For example, companies like Tide regularly provide added incentives. Sometimes they reduce the price of the products at other times they increase the quantity of the products. Big brands like Maruti and Bajaj like to give discounts on their actual prices at special occasions like Diwali, as they are aware that the consumers generally go on a shopping spree during festival times.

Advantages of Brand Architecture

Good and efficient brand architecture is necessary to any company and the many positives to be gained by employing brand architecture are as follows-

• The brand architecture ensures the smooth running of an organization.
• It keeps a constant vigil on the market and its current trends.
• Documenting the numerous strategies and helping in decision making
• The main difference between a successful and unsuccessful company is often brand architecture.
• One of the main duties of the brand architecture is to maintain a balance between the main brand and its sub brands.
• It is the brand architecture which determines when and where to launch new products so that the consumers readily accept it.

One the downside, bad brand architecture will lead to negative consequences such as:

• If a company has disorganized brand architecture then it will lead to chaos within the organization.
• This will result in a decline in the value of the brand.
• Ultimately, the sales figures will be affected and it will have serious repercussions on the profit and loss scenario.
• In such cases, the bottom line usually is the slow and steady disintegration of the brand.

In order to target consumers who follow different brands, the brand architecture has to make an in-depth market study and after analyzing every aspect, they come up with plans to target these customers. For example, Motorola launched its new product Moto-G and was able to snip a large part of Samsung’s customer base, as the compared prices were different although the features were same.