6/13/2025

Chapter 4:
DEVELOPING
BRANDS
Instructor: Nguyen Ha Lien Chi, MA.

Chapter 4: Developing brands

4.1. Designing and Implementing

brand architecture strategies

4.2. Managing Brands Over Time and

Geographic Boundaries

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4.1.
Designing and
Implementing
brand architecture
strategies
Instructor: Nguyen Ha Lien Chi, MA.

4.1. Designing and Implementing

brand architecture strategies
1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

2. Brand Portfolios

3. Brand Hierarchies

4. Corporate Branding

5. Brand Architecture Guidelines

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Learning Objectives
▸ Define the key components of brand architecture.
▸ Outline the guidelines for developing a good brand portfolio.
▸ Assemble a basic brand hierarchy
▸ Describe how a corporate brand is different from a product
brand.
▸ Explain the rationale behind cause marketing and green
marketing.

1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ Branding strategy is critical because it is the means by which
the firm can help
▹ consumers understand its products and services and
organize them in their minds.
▸ Two important strategic tools:
▹ The brand-product matrix and the brand hierarchy
▹ help to characterize and formulate branding strategies by
defining various relationships among brands and products.

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1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ The branding strategy for a firm reflects the number and
nature of common
▸ or distinctive brand elements applied to the different
products sold by the firm.
▹ Which brand elements can be applied to which products
and the nature of new and existing brand elements to
be applied to new products

1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ The role of Brand Architecture
▹ Clarify: brand awareness
■ Improve consumer understanding and communicate
similarity and differences between individual products
▹ Motivate: brand image
■ Maximize transfer of equity to/from the brand to
individual products to improve trial and repeat
purchase
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Brand-Product Matrix
▸ Must define:
Products
▹ Brand-Product relationships
1 2 3 4
(rows)
A
■ Line and category Brands B
extensions C

▹ Product-Brand relationships
(columns)
■ Brand portfolio
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Important Definitions
▸ Product line
▹ A group pf products within a product category that are
closely related
▸ Product mix (product assortment)
▹ The set of all product lines and items that a particular
seller makes available to buyers
▸ Brand mix (brand assortment)
▹ The set of all brand lines that a particular seller makes
available to buyers
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1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ Breadth of a Branding Strategy
▹ Breadth of product mix
■ Aggregate market factors
■ Category factors
■ Environmental factors

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1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ Breadth of a Branding Strategy
▹ Depth of product mix
■ Examining the percentage of sales and profits
contributed by each item in the product line
■ Deciding to increase the length of the product line by
adding new variants
■ or items typically expands market coverage and
therefore market share but also increases costs
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1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ Depth of a Branding Strategy
▹ The number and nature of different brands marketed in
the product class sold by a firm
▹ Referred to as brand portfolio
▹ The reason is to pursue different market segments,
different channels of distribution, or different geographic
boundaries
▹ Maximize market coverage and minimize brand overlap
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1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ Step 1: Defining brand potential
▸ Step 2: identifying brand extension opportunities
▸ Step 3: Branding new products and services

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1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ Step 1: Defining brand potential
▹ Articulating the Brand Vision
▹ Defining the Brand Boundaries
▹ Crafting the Brand Positioning

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1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ Step 2: identifying brand extension opportunities
▹ identify new products and services to achieve that
potential through a well-designed and implemented
brand extension strategy.
▹ A brand extension is a new product introduced under an
existing brand name.
▹ We differentiate between line extensions and category
extensions
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1. Developing a Brand Architecture Strategy

▸ Step 3: Branding new products and services
▹ to decide on the specific brand elements
to use for any particular new product or service
associated with the brand
▹ Sub-brands are an extremely popular form of brand
extension in which the new product carries both the
parent brand name
■ and a new name (Apple iPad, Ford Fusion, and
American Express Blue card).
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2. Brand Portfolios
▸ A brand portfolio includes all brands sold by a company
in a product category
▸ Any one brand in the portfolio should
not harm or decrease the equity of the others

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2. Brand Portfolios
▸ Other reasons for introducing multiple brands in a
category include the following:
▹ To increase shelf presence and retailer dependence
in the store
▹ To attract consumers seeking variety who may
otherwise switch to another brand
▹ To increase internal competition within the firm
▹ To yield economies of scale in advertising, sales,
merchandising, and physical distribution
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Ford Brand Portfolio

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2. Brand Portfolios
▸ Designing a Brand Portfolio
▹ Basic principles:
■ Maximize market coverage so that no potential
customers are being ignored
■ Minimize brand overlap so that brands aren’t
competing among themselves to gain the same
customer’s approval

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2. Brand Portfolios
▸ Brand Roles in the Portfolio
▹ Flankers
▹ Cash cows
▹ Low-end entry-level
▹ High-end prestige brands

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3. Brand Hierarchies
▸ A brand hierarchy
▹ A means of summarizing the branding strategy by
displaying the number
▹ and nature of common and distinctive brand
elements across the firm’s products, revealing the
explicit ordering of brand elements
▹ A useful means of graphically portraying a firm’s
branding strategy
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3. Brand Hierarchies

▸ Levels of a Brand Hierarchy

▸ Designing a Brand Hierarchy

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3. Brand Hierarchies
▸ Levels of a Brand Hierarchy
▹ 1. Corporate or company brand (General Motors)
▹ 2. Family brand (Buick)
▹ 3. Individual brand (Regal)
▹ 4. Modifier (designating item or model) (GS)
▹ 5. Product description (midsize luxury sport sedan
automobile)

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Brand Hierarchy Levels

Corporate Brand (General Motors)

Family Brand (Buick)

Individual Brand (Park Avenue)

Modifier: Item or Model (Ultra)

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3. Brand Hierarchies

Source: Kevin Lane Keller, [2019], Strategic Brand Mangement: Building, Measuring and Managing Brand Equity, 5th edition,
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Pearson, USA.

3. Brand Hierarchies
▸ Family brand
▹ Brands applied across a range of product categories
▹ An efficient means to link common associations to
multiple but distinct products

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3. Brand Hierarchies
▸ Individual Brands
▹ Restricted to essentially one product category
▹ There may be multiple product types offered on the
basis of different models, package sizes, flavors, etc.

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3. Brand Hierarchies
▸ Modifiers
▹ Signals refinements or differences in the brand
related to factors such as quality levels, attributes,
functions, etc.
▹ Plays an important organizing role in communicating
how different products within a category that share
the same brand name are

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3. Brand Hierarchies
▸ Designing a Brand Hierarchy
▹ Brand Hierarchy Decisions
▹ Number of Hierarchy Levels

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3. Brand Hierarchies
▸ Brand Hierarchy Decisions
▹ The number of levels of the hierarchy to use in
general
▹ How brand elements from different levels of the
hierarchy are combined, if at all, for any one
particular product
▹ How any one brand element is linked, if at all, to
multiple products
▹ Desired brand awareness and image at each level
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3. Brand Hierarchies
▸ Number of Hierarchy Levels
▹ Principle of simplicity
■ Employ as few levels as possible
▹ Principle of clarity
■ Logic and relationship of all brand elements
employed must be obvious and transparent

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4. Corporate Branding
▸ Corporate Brand Equity
▹ Occurs when relevant constituents hold strong,
favorable, and unique associations about the corporate
brand in memory
▹ Encompasses a much wider range of associations
than a product brand
▸ Corporate Image Dimensions
▸ Managing the Corporate Brand
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4. Corporate Branding
▸ Corporate Image Dimensions
▹ Corporate product attributes, benefits or attitudes
■ Quality
■ Innovativeness
▹ People and relationships
■ Customer orientation

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4. Corporate Branding
▸ Corporate Image Dimensions
▹ Values and programs
■ Concern with the environment /Social
responsibility
▹ Corporate credibility
■ Expertise / Trustworthiness / Likability

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4. Corporate Branding
▸ Managing the Corporate Brand
▹ Corporate social responsibility
▹ Corporate image campaigns
▹ Corporate name changes

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5. Brand Architecture Guidelines

1. Adopt a strong customer focus
2. Create broad, robust brand platforms
3. Avoid overbranding and having too many brands
4. Selectively employ sub-brands
5. Selectively extend brands

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