Brand Architecture – The New Blueprint For Success

As a self-confessed ‘serial marketer’ with a passion for promoting people, products, brands and services that offer real value, I have reached a conclusion that advertising gets coupled with sales and marketing, while public relations is coupled with relationship.

It has become evident that when dealing with the evolved and conscious modern consumer, a brand needs to be very clear and concise on what it represents and how it will connect with the consumer beyond a once-off purchase.

It can be compared to a labour of love. Without a doubt, there are essential ingredients to achieve the differentiation, entrenchment and longevity of any brand in a fast paced, overwhelmingly full marketplace. These are the ingredients that will stand out from the crowd; the ones that have potential to sate the need of a prospective admirer needing to be valued, connected and in a collaborative relationship.

The three essential ingredients creating that relationship are:

1.      Market Analysis

2.      Brand Architecture

3.      Public Relations

The key is to add the new flavour of ‘brand architecture’ into the mix.

What is brand architecture? As the phrase suggests, it is the structure that a business builds and presents to the world. It addresses every aspect, from the parent company to divisions, products and services.

Although I am not a big fan of psychiatrist Carl Jung, there is one of his concepts that I have a soft spot for: “The idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined as the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships that are not causal in nature. These relationships can manifest themselves as simultaneous occurrences that are meaningfully related.”

This is definitely the spice that makes the recipe work.

The right brand architecture makes your business easier to understand and allows specific audiences to form strong relationships with your business. It also makes
your business easier to manage. It can connect internally with your team and even improve brand investment decisions by clarifying what you are investing in – parent, sub-brands or stand-alone brands – and why.

There are several models of brand architecture. When working on articulating vision into exponential value for any one of my clients, I like to use the basic principles as a skeleton and then meat it up with the role players within the team. If you were to ask your employees, “What does our brand stand for?” will they and your customers give the same answer?

All of the elements in your brand strategy – the values, personality, positioning and essence – need to come together for everyone who comes into contact with your
brand. They also need to reinforce your business strategy and reflect a compelling idea internally and externally.

When this happens your brand becomes authentic. It will have a story to tell that is believable. The result equals a budding relationship that has opportunity to build reputation, rapport and ultimate success.

So what are the basic principles of brand architecture?

Discovery:
This is a summary of the basic marketing principles, micro and macro environments, 7 P’s, SWOT analysis… (we all know the drill!) The important factor is to unpack the outcome of your marketing analysis into a ‘think tank’ meeting where key role players within your team come together and totally immerse themselves in the brand. The essential ingredient in the discovery phase is ‘emotive’ – what is the vision of the company and do I align with this view? What does the brand make me think of, feel, relate to, or want to do?

Brand Platform: Taking the keywords that comes from the discovery phase, highlight what the brand’s position is. Who you are, why you matter, what makes you different. What makes your brand authentic and unique within the market place? Is it an innovator? An authority? A staple? The platform also includes the mission and vision statement to clearly identify and articulate the brand’s core value and characteristics. The idea here is to identify and maintain a strong and consistent branded story at every touch point.

Brand Naming: Now take all that you have identified in your keywords and condense and encapsulate it into just a word or two. This is how the brand and its offering will be identified. Is it recognized internationally, translated, trademarked, and easily pronounceable? Is this name sustainable with your target market? Subsidiary campaign words that do not deviate too far from the original brand name are excellent ways to entrench the market place further.

Brand Architecture: The proper organizational framework of a brand’s portfolio will distinguish and clarify how all the products and services within the company interact, thereby giving consumers an easy way to find, use and differentiate a brand’s offerings. This becomes an important factor once there is business growth, and addition or subtraction of the products and services will need to be integrated.

Visual Expression: We are constantly bombarded with images. How can visual expression differentiate and reinforce your brand identity? Fine tune the use of fonts, colours, imagery and logo’s in order to build a system that helps consumers recall and retain a relationship with an easily recognizable brand.

Brand Execution:  In order to connect the brand to the customer, it is essential that the execution must maintain its synchronicity to the brand strategy, thereby strengthening the message and protecting its position from competitors.

Brand Alignment: Synchronizing the message internally includes the training and implementation of programs that inform the internal team of the brand’s story. This strengthens employee, management, stakeholder and partner support.

Brand Extension: This would be the mix of your marketing analysis, taking the key elements of the intended message and utilizing public relations and communication strategy to infiltrate the market place. It is also used to extend the existing brand into new markets through research on consumer trends/desires and market viability, which can create new revenue streams while reinforcing the brand strength at each touch point.

There is often one element which has a disproportionate influence over the brand’s identity as a whole. It might be a distinctive logo (Coca Cola), colour (Cadbury), imagery or style (iPod). Brand architecture is in essence the art of making a brand identifiable and connected with its intended audience whether the logo is visible or not.

By: Michelle Korevaar, Founder and CEO of SPICE4LIFE