Are you starting up a new business? Have you looked into the competitors of your industry? There must be some big players operating in the industry with an established brand name. Is that so? So, what’s your strategy to compete with those brands? Have you considered how would you establish your branding strategy? I hope you are not excluding your new business from the category of brands. Yeah, you have read it right. Your new company is a brand too. A brand is not dependent upon the time period in the market. Rather it is dependent on the mindset, and the strategies followed. Additionally, you don’t have to invest much of your money to get it recognized it as a brand. You just need to invest the money that you want, not something extra to make it a brand.
If you are not aware of the branding strategies that you can use for establishing your brand, then you must go through this article. It will help you in finding the branding strategies that can lead to establishing your business with a strong brand presence in the market.
What is Branding Strategy?
According to Marketing MO, the branding strategy helps you in conveying the personality of your brand to your potential customers. You can define the persona of your brand and sell it to the customers. It is not about selling only. You need to define the personality offer establishing a positioning and ultimately the long-term relationship with the customers.
It is actually a series of processes or plans that you must use for ranking your product or service in the market. Digital marketing is important in defining the brand strategy too. The trend in social media can be seen in this article.
With such an explanation of branding strategy, there are a few things that you must consider while going for a particular branding strategy. These include:
- A focused and defined target market
- Description of the product or service that you are selling
- The value proposition of the product or brand
- An attractive and unique name of the brand or company
Without having these aspects of your brand, you cannot expect to develop a brand strategy in any way.
Types of branding strategy:
Now, let’s have a look at some of the types of branding strategy. A number of brands utilize these strategies, so they can be known as some of the proven strategies. You can use them for your business as well. However, you must be careful about the size of your business, your overall aims, and objectives from the brand and even the competition in the industry. This is because each strategy might be applicable in a different situation. Without realizing the contextual scenario of the brand, you cannot expect to get the best out of these strategies.
1. House of brands:
In this type of branding, you must have a number of products or services to offer to your customers. This strategy has to be used at the initial stages of the brands, but the real impact is often seen when your business becomes large cooperation. The reason for such a statement is that when you are working on a small scale, you’ll want to cross-sell the product and will tell your existing customers about the launch of new products. When you’ll promote the upcoming product with this motive in mind, you won’t be able to use the house of brands strategy to its fullest. Or you won’t be able to name it as “house of brands” initially.
House of brands is a strategy where your parent brand is different from the sub-brands produced by the company. The intention behind this strategy is that the legacy of the parent brand is not transferred to the sub-brands. Each of the products produced by the company would have a different name and a different identity. You might divert from the original idea of starting up the company. Even, the name of the strategy itself implies the standing of the brands. House of brands shows the presence of a number of brands under one main head or house. So, the advantages and disadvantages of House of brands include:
Advantages:
- You don’t have to keep on the legacy of the parent brand or the other brands in the company
- You can easily deviate from the original idea and go for diversification
- Brand positioning is independent
Disadvantages
- It might take extra time to establish the presence of the brand in the market
Branding Strategy Example:
The example of this brand strategy includes Proctor & Gamble. Proctor & Gamble produces a number of different products, but it does not use its name with any of those products. Some of the most prominent brands of Proctor & Gamble include Tide, Pampers, Ariel, Gillette, Pantene, etc. Each of these brands has its own existence in the market. Proctor & Gamble does not extend them the support to survive in the market.
A number of successful brands are following this strategy. So, you can adapt it as well, if your aim is to create individual brands.
2. Branded house:
In this branding strategy in marketing, the new products and brands are seen as the branches of the main company. The individual existence of the brand is there. But it is usually taken as the name of the product, not the brand itself.
The number of products and services have to be large in number for this strategy too. However, you’ll have to make the decision about adopting this strategy when launching your second product or service in the market.
One thing that you must note here is that you’ll have to specify a separate name for each of the product that you offer, but you’ll definitely have to use the name of the original product. So, the advantages and disadvantages are the part of this branding strategy too. These include:
Advantages:
- You can establish a relatively quick reputation in the market
Disadvantages:
- In case the reputation of the parent brand is negative, the new brand will have to face it as well.
Branding Strategy Example:
For this strategy, the example includes Google. We know various products of Google for different functions. But we recognize most of them as Google Products rather than the maintenance of a separate identity. The search engine “Google” email services in the form of Google Mail, Google Hangouts, Google Calendar are some of the sub-brands or categories of the main brand. So, I hope you would have understood it.
3. Product Line Extension:
This type of branding strategy in marketing actually refers to the inclusion of new products in the existing portfolio of your business. If you are using the same brand name that you have already used and enter the same product category, then this strategy is product line extension.
Advantages:
- You can cater more customers through the introduction of such products
- Feeling of customization can be inculcated in your audience with the introduction of specific versions
Disadvantages:
- Cannibalization is the problem when it comes to the product line strategy, so it can be a problem
Branding Strategy Example:
The prominent example of this strategy is the Dove Shampoo. The presence of different variants in the form of total repair, damaged hair, etc. are the extensions in the product line. Similarly, the other shampoos providing different variants for different hair types exhibit this strategy. So, you can use this strategy quite easily if it seems for your business type.
4. Brand Extension:
This strategy also fits when you need to add in more products to the portfolio. Moreover, the basic difference between product line extension and brand extension is in the category of product. If you are introducing a new category with the same old brand name, then you are actually using the brand extension.
Advantages:
- You can capture the brand value associated with the existing brand
- You can increase the revenue stream because targeting more customers will result in more sales and thus more revenue.
- Cross-selling is often a possibility
Disadvantages
- You don’t get recognized exclusively for a particular product niche
Branding Strategy Example
This example below will help you in understanding this concept as well as differentiating between the two. I’ll take the example of Dove brand again. Let’s assume that Dove created shampoos before than the soap. The introduction of new variants of shampoo was the product line extension (discussed above). But the introduction of Dove Soap when Dove shampoos were already in the market is a brand extension.
5. Multi-Brand Strategy:
The last strategy that I am going to highlight today is a multi-brand strategy. In this strategy, you need to enter the existing product category with a different brand name. This strategy actually has
Advantages:
- You can get more sales and revenues by targeting a different segment
Disadvantages
- Chances of spoiling the reputation of parent brand exist, so you’ll have to be careful about it
- Cannibalization can be a problem
Branding strategy example:
If you have ever wondered why a large conglomerate does introduce two similar nature products, then you’ll find an answer here, in this strategy. Let’s take Lipton and Supreme as examples. Both are the products from Unilever. Any idea, why are they both introduced? No? Let me explain. Both of these brands target a different market. You can consider the market of each of these brands as their specific niches to which they are catering. At the time of introduction of both these brands, the market would have been researched by Unilever and a market gap indicating the two different niches would have been found.
In normal cases when you have just started the business or even when it is at the medium scale, you try to include more products for the same market, or you might go for targeting different market by introducing new product category. This multi-brand strategy is usually used when all the other options of expansion are exhausted.
