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The Future Of Brand Architecture |
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Written by Research International
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Bruno Botton explains what the trend towards corporate ‘umbrella
brands’ might mean to a consumer public that wants superb product
experiences.
This article focuses on two trends in product branding, which may at
first seem disconnected: the focus on product experiences, and the
growth of corporate branding.
The first is described fully in our Return of the Product study, and
comes from consumers themselves. People increasingly see the product
experience as a key driver of the brand relationship. The quality of
the product experience is growing in importance after a couple of
decades when some companies perhaps lost focus on product performance,
particularly in developed markets. If true innovation is defined as
product change that provides real solutions to real consumer issues,
then it’s not unfair to suggest that some brands ignored this in favour
of quick-fix brand extensions which lacked any longer-term impact (see
Research International’s Risk! Study for a discussion of the dangers of
this strategy).
Surface innovation that fails to truly innovate or differentiate can
have a short-term positive impact on profits. This may be enough for a
new product manager under pressure to deliver, but it can turn off
consumers in the medium term, as marketing becomes a surrogate for
product innovation and stops being truly effective. Our new qualitative
study was full of consumers whose favoured brands had become less
tasty, or less robust than they used to be – the brand promise being
not supported anymore by the actual product experience. As one Belgian
customer put it, “Bang & Olufsen didn’t keep their promise. It
turned out to be too fragile. They pay more attention to the exterior
and too little on the interior.”
Consumers buy products, and for many the product experience is by far
their most important touchpoint. Before moving on, though, we should
stress that, although it has been over-emphasized on occasion, the
so-called softer side of the brand remains an important component of
the brand alchemy. Through a brand’s emotional story, the product
experience is amplified and linked to the consumer’s imaginative life –
it is all a matter of balance.
The second trend I want to discuss is the development of corporate
brands, which have traditionally stayed ‘behind the scenes’. Proctor
& Gamble’s name is increasingly visible on many of its brands. Its
main competitor Unilever also announced early last year that they would
use their corporate name in customer-facing marketing activities. We
could also mention Nestl?, Danone and many others, which have been
historically keen to hide their wide range of branded products from
consumers. Many reasons drive the decision to appear as one company
under an ‘umbrella brand’. In part it is a response to a global
marketplace, but the main factor is the need to rationalise marketing
spend.
Another symptom of this trend is the more subtle change in emphasis
between corporate and daughter brands – is it J’Adore from Lanc?me … or
Lanc?me J’Adore? These changes might be actively supported by visuals
and logos. Many durables brands have been implementing this strategy
for a while now. The main emphasis is on the corporate name, the
product brands being minor. Can you tell the name of a Nokia phone or
of a Samsung CTV ? Probably not – all marketing efforts have been put
behind the corporate name. The corporate brand remains; products will
pass away.
The example of France Telecom, mentioned by Jean-Noel Kapferer in his
book Re-Inventing the Brand, is a good illustration of this phenomenon.
FT invested millions of euros in daughter brands like Ola, Loft,
Mobicarte without mentioning their relationship with the mother brand.
Now FT is moving back, and will be pushing its corporate brand harder
in a context of deregulation.
How do these two trends connect? What impact will they have on branding
practices? One of the hypotheses we could draw relates to brand
architecture. Many companies have developed multi-layered and extremely
complex brand architectures over the years - some for historical
reasons (like brand acquisitions), some possibly due to a lack of
internal cohesion or communication. The trends toward corporate
branding and an emphasis on the product allow us a different
perspective on what brand architecture could and should look like. They
imply a simplified brand structure in which the corporate brand would
directly endorse a range of product brands, with all intermediate brand
levels progressively disappearing. This would clarify the offers, put
the product back at centre stage for consumers, and force companies to
really define their corporate brand and related values.
I’d be ready to bet on the trend for simplified brand architecture to grow over the next few years. |
