Brand Architecture for the Digital Age: Understanding the Why & How

Our guest author says good brand architecture is guided by the needs of consumers.

Brand architecture is important for every business, whether a startup or an established one. Because, in a way, brand architecture addresses the pertinent question: What exactly does your company do? If businesses want their customers to remain loyal to their brands, products and services, shaping the brand architecture is necessary. All the more so, in today’s digital age.

Good brand architecture is guided by the needs of your consumers; how your offerings fulfil their wants and how they in turn (consumers) understand these offerings. It helps ease buying decisions and allows them to develop a relationship with your brands and sub-brands.

A quick explanation of brand architecture would be: a structure of a company’s portfolio of brands, sub-brands, products and services.

Going digital affords you instant access to consumers, something that many businesses are leveraging, by experimenting with their product portfolios and creating a host of brand extensions. It allows you to build a direct and unmediated relationship with your consumer and reduces your dependence on channel partners like retailers, for market feedback. In fact, even the simple ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ buttons have now become powerful measures of trust and brand love.

All this makes brands easily accessible to consumers, amplified by the fact that markets today exemplify the power of choice! That’s why it’s essential for your brand to consolidate its position and have a strong focus that consumers connect with. Brand architecture in the digital age is indeed indispensable!

There’s however no such thing as a right or wrong brand architecture; because every brand will have its own definite needs and growth trajectory, which will go on to define the architecture. That’s why you need to understand what works best for your brand and adopt a suitable strategy.

Here’s a quick snapshot of two types of brand architectures, Branded House and House of Brands, to help you decide what may be the best way forward for your brand:

If you’re a startup with limited resources, then a Branded House strategy may work best for you, unlike the House of Brands strategy, which would be better suited for companies with deeper pockets and greater resources. The best strategy for you to adopt would emerge when you plan your long-term vision for the brand and make some tough choices.

The author Dhun Patel is a perceptive brand strategist and a researcher. Calling herself a student for life, she's spent the last 14 years studying people's behaviour and psychology in different contexts. She is the co-founder and executive director of Therefore Design, a design agency based in Pune. Along with heading a design agency, she also mentors organisations on design thinking process, empowering them to look beyond the obvious and create trailblazing solutions.