Brand architecture

Brand architecture is the ordering of all brands, sub-brands and endorsements in an organisation: who carries which name, and how they relate. The spectrum runs from a branded house, where one master brand carries everything, to a house of brands, where each product has its own brand and the parent stays invisible. In between sit sub-brands and endorsed brands. The trade-off is leverage against risk: one strong brand builds faster and cheaper, but one scandal then touches everything. Good architecture follows strategy, limits the number of brands to what the organisation can feed, and makes each brand's role explicit.

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