Multi-Brand Strategy: A Guide to Position Multiple Brands Effectively
With the reality of today’s globalized markets and the advantages of digital transformation, companies today have the opportunity to dedicate themselves to producing or promoting various lines of products and services through the same brand.
This is known as a multi-brand strategy, and we’ll tell you all about it. For small and medium-sized companies, Branding is a relatively simple practice, where many efforts are focused to build their digital authority.
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The brand also focuses on creating a positive image in the minds and hearts of consumers, but as it grows it becomes more difficult. Visit “Digitalmarketing” to get more knowledge about branding and multi-brand strategy.
The complexity can occur due to several factors, for example: the expansion of the brand with more products or services, even with other brands that emerge from the main brand and compete with each other in the market.
But for this, there is a multi-brand strategy and now you will know what it is, its importance and how to work on this strategy in your company.
What is Actually a Multi-Brand Strategy?
We can say that the multi-brand strategy, in general terms, consists of the set of actions carried out by a company to define the process of promoting various brands under the same organization and developing different identities.
The most general idea is to restrict or eliminate competition between brands from the same company to increase their market share, attacking various segments of the consuming public.
Think of a company that has multiple brands under one roof. They may come to mind:
- Manzana
- Disney
Each of them has a multi-brand strategy to guide the actions and processes of each of its products and “sub-brands” in the same segment or line, at the same time.
But, ensuring that there is no internal competition between them and each one can position themselves in their own way.
For this type of action, taking into account, the so-called brand architecture is essential.
In the end, it establishes the relationship between the different parts of a brand with everything it involves such as products, services, divisions, among others in order to enhance it in the minds of its consumers.
This set of strategies allows you to design, project and build the portfolio of your brand through harmonious and integrated processes, to unite the objectives of the company, the expectations of the public and the initiatives of each sub-brand under the same strategy.
There are two types of multi-brand strategies or “prospects” that can be given to these Marketing actions, according to the variations of the turn. They are based on the approach that companies use to differentiate each brand in the minds of consumers.
Then we show them to you.
- Separation According to Brand Identity
This is when the only differentiating factor of a product or service from its competitors in it’s aspects relate to the brand, such as image or identity.
An example of this is FedEx, which is a national and international parcel and shipping company, where its different brands are based on the separation of its services such as FedEx Lite, FedEx Premium and FedEx Cargo among others.
- Not Related to the Mother Brand
There are also cases in which the different brands of a company are separated from the main one. And a beginning user cannot distinguish which brand belongs to which company.
Facebook is a clear example of this. The American company, over time has absorbed other companies such as WhatsApp and Instagram etc among others.
For each one it has different strategies and except for small clues, a user could not recognize that they are the property of the “F” brand.
This model is often described as a “house brand”, in which a marc principal may be far less known than its sister brands, which have their own semantic universe.
We can say that Unilever is another one of these examples, since many of the following brands are his properties even though they have an independent historical base and a prominent space among his followers and clients.
To help you to understand this better, we will give you some examples of companies that have successfully applied a multi-brand strategy.
4 Companies With Successful Multi-Brand Strategies
Next, we will show you how 4 companies from different fields have used this strategy to establish themselves as leaders in their segments.
- Disney
Disney is much more than children’s movies, that’s a fact. The company has movie studios, radio, theme parks, television news channels, sports and children’s programming, even characters like The Simpsons, with the recent purchase of FOX .
Everything mentioned, under the same brand: Disney.
Its audience, despite recognizing its multiple brands, knows that they are all under the curtain of the company and that they are protected by “Magic Disney”.
The semantic universes of each story that they project in cinemas, television, streaming services and their parks, regardless of their differences, complement each other to demonstrate to their consumers that the brand puts its touch on each one.
This name is so powerful that it has become a verb. Alphabet, as it is known in the stock market, contains enormous products itself and services that harmonize within Google’s brand architecture.
Every product that the company has is the signature of the giant in terms of integrity, flexibility, its objectives and what it anticipates of the future.
The company has been able to stay competitive over time by creating valuable messages about its mission and purpose.
In this sense, each product and service they promote comes loaded with those values, as well as transparency, strength and simplicity.
Something that also distinguishes Google in its multi-brand strategy is the ability it has to diversify its base of platforms and software to the point of collaborating with professionals, regular consumers and businesses.
It helps the brand to be present in the most different corners of production and consumption, which allows it to conquer the market and exponentially expand the value of its main brand.
- Amazon
Amazon is much more than books, for quite some time. In its architecture we can see the extension of the brand to many markets.
For example, with the birth of Amazon Basics, the company focuses on competing in the strongest product categories, with a number of high-quality items and reasonable prices that shake any brand.
They have dozens of brands that serve different needs, for example:
- Amazon Fresh: where the customer finds grocery products.
- Amazon Prime: shipping discount services, streaming, product discounts, among others.
- Amazon Echo- Products that integrate Amazon’s voice interface for multiple purposes.
- Amazon Kindle: purchase, storage and consumption of digital books through Amazon tablets.
It showed the tendency to create sub-brands and harmonize them under the same structure, but independently. Thanks to Amazon, which is a clear example of the success of multi-brand strategies.
- EA (Electronic Arts)
Finally, there is EA. Anyone who has spent more than a day playing on a video game console recognizes the logo of this brand. And it is one of the absolute world leaders in digital entertainment.
Each game that the company brings out which has its own Marketing and strategies has a completely different culture within the business.
In addition, it keeps a unique story that is not related to other brand launches, but implicitly bearing the EA name.
As you can see, when a company decides to expand, having a multi-brand strategy is an essential factor to ensure the success and individual focus of each line.
Now, with this already explained, you can guess some factors that make it decisive for the success of a company in its aspirations to establish various brands in the markets. But, in order not to leave anything in the air, we will explain its importance.
Why is a multi-brand strategy so convenient for large companies?
The real importance of having a multi-brand strategy in a large company goes through six determining factors:
- build leadership in the industry
- meet needs with your solutions
- establish effective competition
- promote healthy internal competition
Next, you will understand why.
- Leadership
It is easy to understand that when a company launches and applies a multi-brand strategy, what it is looking for is to gain authority and notoriety for its portfolio of products and services within the market in which it operates.
Establishing several brands in one or more segments of your business can improve your consumers’ perception about you and will make them compare your brand with your competitors every time they investigate your products or services.
- Address Needs
Perhaps it is the most ethical end that exists. Addressing the needs of your audience should be the number one priority for your organization .
A brand that plans to establish a multi-brand strategy will have the opportunity to satisfy all or various needs of its target audience and earn a privileged place in its market.
- Effective Competition
A great company will have great competitors. This nature of the market forces companies to generate effective actions that make them gain ground over others.
The multi-brand strategy fulfills it, establishing the value and versatility of your company through Marketing actions to show consumers that the best option that exists is yours.
- Promote Healthy Internal Competition
When you have multiple brands within the same company, generally, you need several managers to manage them.
This will help each of them to compete healthily and each brand would be able to generate more income and Branding results for the company.
From all this, the company can gain competitiveness, development, market reach and strength for its organizational culture.
- Maintains Clients Over Time
Something we know is that consumers change because their tastes, interests and needs changes.
The multi-brand strategy allows you to follow and implement actions to give the public what they need at each stage of their journey and to remain faithful to the brand.
The longevity of a customer is increasingly necessary with the phenomenon of relationships and experiences that consumers want to receive from brands.
This is how metrics such as LTV (Lifetime Value), ROI (Return on Investment) and NPS (Net Promoter Score) have taken hold.
In the case of Rock Content, for example, the evolution of the client in its Content Marketing strategy is the indicator that moves us to propose the acquisition of new services that we have, because we want it to grow with us over time.
Thus, he is exposing himself to each of our brands (Rock Stage, Rock Studio, Visually, Ion, Live) while strengthening his relationship with the main one, which is Rock Content.
- It Allows you to Try New Alternatives Without So Many Risks
A small company when creating its brand has little margin for error. In other words, a poorly planned or executed decision can take it off to the market in a matter of days.
However, a large company with a well-defined and applied multi-brand strategy can test new products and services in each of its brands and have product portfolios that give them more opportunities to gain authority, by having the public who associate them with the company.
With all this said, it only remains to explain how you can develop a strategy of this style and ensure the success of all the brands in your company.
Conclusion
It is done! You already know enough about the multi-brand strategy and are ready to start developing it in your company.
Remember, the real intention of these actions is to give your company the possibility of competing effectively in the market in different fields, but under the same brand identity, values and purpose.
If you are interested in brand strategies and have the objective of improving the management of your company, download this complete Branding guide and review the best practices in this segment!