Getting Started with Your Brand Portfolio Strategy
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Every day I help commercial companies, educational institutions, healthcare organizations and NGOs to develop their brand strategy. Because many organizations face the same kind of brand questions and challenges, I regularly explain a frequently requested topic. This time it is about the brand portfolio. As far as I am concerned, this is one of the more fun topics within the development of a brand strategy.
You don’t take on a brand portfolio out of luxury. You do it because it’s a pain and because the current portfolio is obstructing the strategic ambitions of the organization. This brings us directly to the essence of building a good brand portfolio; it must help realize the strategic ambitions.
A good brand portfolio strategy helps with strategic growth ambitions
A brand portfolio often has historical growth. Many organizations tend to ‘stick a name on’ a new product. This creates a new brand and gradually the portfolio grows. Mergers and acquisitions also ensure that an organization suddenly acquires a whole set of brands.
Often these are brands that overlap with brands from the existing portfolio. Time to clean up the portfolio. It also happens that the organization has set a new strategic course, which means that the current design of the brand portfolio no longer suffices.
Situation is leading
So it makes it fun to understand what the reason is and at the same time that makes these kinds of issues always custom-made. The basic theory about portfolio branding may always be the same, but the specific situation of an organization determines how you apply that theory. So there is more to the brand portfolio and brand architecture question than you would think at first glance.
Brand portfolio vs. brand architecture
In principle, the terms are interchangeable, with a small nuance. That is in what I call the horizontal and vertical perspective. The brand portfolio question answers the question: how many brands do I need to serve the market? That is the horizontal perspective, namely how many brands exist side by side?
With brand architecture you answer the question: how list of qatar consumer email do the brands relate to each other? That is the vertical perspective, because it indicates which brand is ‘in charge’ and which brand is supporting.
Also read: Brand positioning? These steps are (almost) always forgotten
Factors that play a role in developing a brand portfolio
There are many factors that play a role in what is online reputation and how to take care of it? developing a brand portfolio. These include the markets in which your products are located, the target groups you are targeting and the quality of your offering. The two most important factors, in my opinion, are a) your own vision and b) the strategic movement of the organization. The first factor is very important.
Vision and strategic movement
I already indicated that building a brand portfolio is alb directory custom work. It is therefore important that the organization itself develops a vision on this and does not blindly copy the strategy of a competitor in the field or an appealing organization. The second factor is crucial for me; what is the strategic movement of the organization?
To give a simple example. I advised an organization that was making a shift from a product focus to offering a total solution, where the products formed a whole. It was decided to build the corporate brand and gradually restructure the product brands.