For deciding effective brand architecture, the product market context roles of the group of brands must be well defined and coordinated. There are four steps of product market context roles that work together to define a specific offering and these are –
- Endorser and subbrands roles – An endorser brand is an established brand that provides credibility and substance to the offering. Endorser brands usually represents organizations rather than products because organizational associations such as innovation, leadership and trust are particularly relevant in endorsement context for ex. Nestea and Nescafe create associations with its mother brand Nestle and Mcchicken, Mcburgers, Mctikki, etc. from Mcdonald’s. Tata has 80 different companies operating in seven business sectors, which are endorsed under the megabrand TATA. The sub brands on the other hand stretches endorser brands that add associations, a brand personality or any other quality which creates brand identity of it for ex. Nestle’s Cerelac, Gillette’s Sensor and Cadbury’s Bournvita. The understanding and use of endorser brand and sub brands is a key in achieving clarity, synergy and leverage in the brand portfolio.
- Benefit brands – The benefit brand is a brand which offers either features, component ingredients or services which becomes the unique selling proposition (USP) of offering, for ex. Gillette diversifier’s oral B has a branded feature which shows the time to replace the toothbrush, Dietcoke, Dabur amla, and Neem & Margo soaps have branded component and gradient and American express, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and Taj group of hotels have the branded services associated with their names.
- Co-Brands – Co- branding occurs when brands from different organizations combine to create an offering in which each plays a driver role. The impact of co-branding can be greater than expected when the associations of each brand are strong and complementary. A research study of Kodak showed that for a fictional entertainment device 20% of the prospect said that they would buy the product under the Kodak name and 20% would buy the device under Sony name, but 80% would buy the product if it carries both the names. other ex. Are TVS Suzuki, Colgate Palmolive and Dabon (joint venture between Dabur and Bongrain international of France).
- Driver role – Driver role is an extent to which a brand drives the purchase decision and defines the use experience, brand with a driver role will have some level of loyalty. Brand architecture involves selecting the set of brands to be assigned a major driver role; those brands will have priority in brand building. A driver brand is usually a master brand or sub brands but endorser and second and third level sub brands can have some driver roles, for ex. Cadbury’s has two sub brands ‘Dairymilk’ and ‘Bournvita’, which have the major driver roles for selling, another ex. Is Nirma tikia and Nirma washing powder, which is operating in the market with value for money as its major driving role?
