Brand Building

The concept of brand architecture is comparatively of very recent origin and there are not many books available that are devoted exclusively to this subject. This book makes an attempt to put together a set of articles and case studies so as to present to the reader a fairly comprehensive and systematic delineation on the subject.

This book has two sections. The first section – Concepts and Approaches – has seven articles. While the first two articles together provide a detailed introduction to the concept of brand architecture, the three subsequent articles expound upon specific topics related to brand architecture such as brand extension, brand hyperextension and corporate branding. The last two articles in this section are more application-oriented, and propose specific approaches and models. The sixth article explains how associations can be created between corporate brands and other partner brands and organizations as part of a positioning strategy. The last article suggests a model which links various brand architecture typologies with different strategic brand concepts.

The first article Brand Architecture: The Concept and Its Origins (A Comprehensive Literature Survey) by R Harish explains the origins of this concept, and outlines the ideas behind it as propounded by early researchers. Brand architecture is a comparatively new concept. This terminology was used for the first time in 1995. It refers to an organization’s approach to the design and management of its brand portfolio – decisions regarding number of brands, role of specific brands and relationships among the brands. Jean Noel Kapferer suggested six alternative branding strategies for managing the brand-product relationship. Each strategy denotes a certain role for the brand as well as its relationship with the products which it is applied to. The six branding strategies are product brand, line brand, range brand, umbrella brand, source brand and endorsing brand. Aaker and Joachimsthaler...