Brand architecture

Brand architecture is the structure of brands within an organizational entity. It is the way in which the brands within a companys portfolio are related to, and differentiated from, one another. The architecture should define the different leagues of branding within the organization; how the corporate brand and sub-brands relate to and support each other; and how the sub-brands reflect or reinforce the core purpose of the corporate brand to which they belong.

Types of brand architecture

There are three key levels of branding:

Umbrella brand and family brand - Examples include virgin group and heinz. These are consumer-facing brands used across all the firm's activities, and this name is how they are known to all their stakeholders consumers, employees, shareholders, partners, suppliers and other parties. These brands may also be used in conjunction with product descriptions or sub-brands: for example Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup, or virgin trains.

Endorsed brands, and sub-brands - For example Nestle kitkat Cadbury dairy milk sony playstation or Polo by Ralph Lauren. These brands include a parent brand which may be a corporate brand, an umbrella brand, or a family brand - as an endorsement to a sub-brand or an individual, product brand. The endorsement should add credibility to the endorsed sub-brand in the eyes of consumers.

Individual product brand - For example, Procter & Gambles Pampers or Unilever's Dove. The individual brands are presented to consumers, and the parent company name is given little or no prominence. Other stakeholders, like shareholders or partners, will know the producer by its company name.

You can expect bumps along the way taking your new brand architecture from script to reality. A brilliant brand architecture can fail because of unrealistic expectations, lack of budgets or simple inertia. But solid planning can minimize your bumps and maximize your results. Four parts of any plan include:

1.

A realistic roadmap. Plan ahead. Imagine what the world will look like with the new brand

architecture in place. Then chart out a logical plan to get there. Get internal constituencies such as IT, Operations, HR to contribute to and sign-off on their part of the plan. Identify the areas with greatest potential for disrupting business. Put the resources in place to minimize the disruption. The brand architecture should make doing business easier, not harder. Set a realistic timeline. For some companies, it can take years because of capital costs for changing signage and equipment. In fast moving consumer goods, change can happen in a matter of months. 2. Practice, practice, practice. The people who will be on the front lines of staging and living

with the new brand portfolio need to understand why the changes are being made. They need to learn how to migrate from their tried and true way of doing things to the new brand architecture. Make the training practical and hands-on. Give people an opportunity to think about implications of the new brand architecture for their own job. Getting new employees on board from the start requires initial training. HR should play an on-going and key role in staging the new system.

3.

Set a final change-over date. Even with the best of plans, transitions to the new brand

architecture can drag out for years. Set a firm deadline for achieving a complete change-over. Give people incentives to meet deadlines. Create consequences for neglecting them. Some companies set a final clean-out day in which they walk through the buildings and throw away old materials.

4. Measure the progress. Go back to the original problems that you were trying to solve. Set in place metrics for assessing your progress in solving those problems. These may be combination of qualitative and quantitative measures. For example, success may be measured by survey data that shows a decrease in customer confusion, or a business metric such as more crossselling. Or it may be a financial metric around reductions in printing costs or legal trademark fees. The roadmap for staging your new brand architecture is an important first step. It is only through effective staging and execution that you actually build your strong portfolio.

Titan brand architecture

Titan Industries was established in 1984 as a joint venture between the Tata Group and theTamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation, the company brought about a paradigm shift in the Indian watch market, offering quartz technology with international styling, manufactured in a state-of-the-art factory at Hosur, Tamil Nadu. Leveraging its understanding of different segments in the watch market, the company launched a second independent watch brand-Sonata, as a value brand to those seeking to buy functionally styled watches at affordable prices. In addition it focused on the youth with its third brand Fastrack. It has also premium fashion watches by acquiring a licence for global brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss, while. It has also in its portfolio its first Swiss Made watch brand Xylys The company manufactures over 8 million watches per annum and has a customer base of over 80 million. It has manufacturing and assembly operations at Hosur, Dehradun, Roorkee and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh and an ECB plant in Goa. Its main products are: Watches: Currently manufactures four main watch brands viz. Titan- For the premium segment, Fastrack focused on the youth and trendy fashion space, Sonata - for the mass market and MarQ Your Dreams MarQuity Xylys - For the premium market. The Titan brand architecture comprises several sub-brands, each of which is a leader in its segment. Notable among them are: Titan Edge The world's slimmest watch which stands for the philosophy of "lessis more". Titan Raga the

feminine and sensuous accessory for today's woman,- Nebula - crafted in solid gold and precious stonesAnd several other collections like Wall Street, Heritage, Regalia and the Aviatorseries, all of which form a part of the Titan wardrobe. Sonata is today India's largest watch selling brand and is priced between Rs 295/- and Rs 1200/-. Today, the Titan portfolio has over 60% of the domestic market share in the organized watch market. The company has 222 exclusive showrooms christened 'World of Titan', making it amongst the largest chains in its category.