Comments on: Brand the Business or Brand Its Offerings? http://thebrandingblog.com/branding/brand-the-business-or-brand-its-offerings/ information and strongly-held opinions concerning branding and positioning Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:08:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Martin Jelsema http://thebrandingblog.com/branding/brand-the-business-or-brand-its-offerings/comment-page-1/#comment-2069 Martin Jelsema Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:12:42 +0000 http://thebrandingblog.com/brand-the-business-or-brand-its-offerings/#comment-2069 Mark, your question deserves at least a chapter or two in an authoritative text book on brand management and strategy. And, yes there is such an animal: Kevin Lane Keller's Strategic Brand Management has the best overview and methodology addressing the product/company name priority question. I suggest getting that book used from Amazon. But in a nutshell, Keller looks at brand hierarchy from the perspective of brand equity. Where do you want that equity to reside over time? Are things like company reputation more important because of service and support considerations? Does each product serve a separate market or market segment? Is there a "systems" approach where your sales people sell all products or are there separate sales activities? Is yours a business where price points, features, grades, etc. are important differentiators? If you have separate brands, will they be promoted as a family or will each stand on its own with its own promotional strategy and budget? In making these decisions, I'd first determine whether the product managers are desiring to build empires or if there are legitimate reasons for having separate brands. In looking at your web site, I can see that you serve four different markets but you're promoting them equally. In this case, one very viable strategy would be to use the corporate name as THE brand name, and subbrand each product grou with descriptors relating to market segments. That's my opinion, anyone else like to chime in? Martin Jelsema Mark, your question deserves at least a chapter or two in an authoritative text book on brand management and strategy. And, yes there is such an animal: Kevin Lane Keller’s Strategic Brand Management has the best overview and methodology addressing the product/company name priority question. I suggest getting that book used from Amazon.

But in a nutshell, Keller looks at brand hierarchy from the perspective of brand equity. Where do you want that equity to reside over time? Are things like company reputation more important because of service and support considerations? Does each product serve a separate market or market segment? Is there a “systems” approach where your sales people sell all products or are there separate sales activities? Is yours a business where price points, features, grades, etc. are important differentiators? If you have separate brands, will they be promoted as a family or will each stand on its own with its own promotional strategy and budget?

In making these decisions, I’d first determine whether the product managers are desiring to build empires or if there are legitimate reasons for having separate brands.

In looking at your web site, I can see that you serve four different markets but you’re promoting them equally. In this case, one very viable strategy would be to use the corporate name as THE brand name, and subbrand each product grou with descriptors relating to market segments.
That’s my opinion, anyone else like to chime in?
Martin Jelsema

]]> By: Mark Rechner http://thebrandingblog.com/branding/brand-the-business-or-brand-its-offerings/comment-page-1/#comment-2046 Mark Rechner Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:07:51 +0000 http://thebrandingblog.com/brand-the-business-or-brand-its-offerings/#comment-2046 How do you decide when to name a product or service and when to just use a generic descriptor after the company brand name? We just renamed our company last year and want to build recognition and awareness for that name. At the same time, every product manager wants a unique name for their product or service. Not everything gets its own name, but what criteria can we use to determine if it should have its own name or just be under the corporate umbrella as a generic descriptor (the Company service A)? How do you decide when to name a product or service and when to just use a generic descriptor after the company brand name? We just renamed our company last year and want to build recognition and awareness for that name. At the same time, every product manager wants a unique name for their product or service. Not everything gets its own name, but what criteria can we use to determine if it should have its own name or just be under the corporate umbrella as a generic descriptor (the Company service A)?

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