Brand Architecture And Franchise Brands

Branding Strategy Insider helps marketing oriented leaders and professionals build strong brands. To that end, we are happy to answer marketing questions of all types. Today, Katrin, a senior marketer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates asks…

I was wondering if you could give me the benefit of your expertise with a brand architecture issue I’m struggling with. 

I recently joined a company who operate a diverse portfolio of franchise brands – from F&B to fashion. The company or parent has pretty much remained invisible over the years, with the focus being on building the franchise brands. The success of the franchise brands is key, however, we also need to build the brand equity of the company/parent brand, which I don’t believe is happening. What brand architecture do you think would address this? I have always found BrandingStrategyInsider.com to be invaluable, but I’m stuck on this one. 

Thanks for the question Katrin. A good first step in linking a company or parent brand to the franchise brands is to endorse the franchise brands with the company or parent brand. Examples: [Franchise brand name] a (company brand name) [category descriptor] -or- [Franchise brand name] brought to you by (company brand name). Before I did this I would through research check to make sure that linking every individual franchise brand to the company/parent brand does not cause any unintended negative associations. For instance, if some of the franchise brands own very different positions in target customers’ minds, linking them all to the parent/company brand may blur those differences or reduce the appeal of one or more of the franchise brands. Another way to link all of the franchise brands to the parent brand is to create a strong parent brand identity that could be applied across all of the franchise brands in a way that still provides room for individual franchise brand identities. One of the questions you will have to answer is how much of the identity needs to be the individual franchise identity versus the parent company identity. This will inform how you link the brands and which identity becomes more or less dominant.

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