It is difficult to turn an iconic, affordable, available, statement brand into an exclusive, high-touch, rare, luxury brand, particularly when customers do not envision the brand as a competitor of Hermès, Maserati, Rosewood Hotels, or Cartier.
Corporate growth often depends on a company building or buying multiple brands. These may exist within one or several product categories. Such a strategy can provide economies of scale. It also reduces risk. If one brand is struggling to grow, profits can be diverted to brands or categories with greater growth potential.
One overlooked area in brand-business learning is the necessity for creating and implementing a brand-business architecture policy. Why is a brand-business architecture policy necessary?
In an effort to bring more of the rigor and discipline of financial analysis to marketing decisions, a number of scholars and consulting organizations have attempted to apply financial investment models to the management of multiple products within the firm. After all, firms manage portfolios of products.
Many marketers seek to obtain financial benefits from their brands by using the awareness, attitudes, affection, and loyalty associated with these brands by “extending” the brand to new and different products and product categories. Procter and Gamble used its Tide brand, which was associated for many years with a single powdered detergent, to expand into an array of more than 60 related cleaning products, including specialty powdered products, liquid detergents, antibacterial fabric spray, and instant...
