How to Leverage Brand Architecture to Fuel Growth

This is the third article in a series devoted to discussing brand architecture. Be sure to check out our previous articles to learn about the importance of keeping your consumers at the center of your brand architecture, and when it may be time to re-visit your brand’s architecture.

The Need for Brand-Led Growth
It’s no secret that in today’s ever-changing marketplace, the name of the game is growth—and that brands and their assets are being stretched in every direction to drive it.

What is a brand owner to do? As we discussed in our second article in this series, it’s critical to look to your brand’s architecture when the business is being challenged to increase sales and unlock growth potential.

Why Brand Architecture and Growth Go Hand-in-Hand
A successful brand architecture organizes a brand or business in a way that makes it clear and simple to navigate. It also serves as a strategic roadmap to structure a portfolio of brands and/or product offerings for near- and longer-term success.

Having a clear brand architecture helps guide the decision-making and planning needed for realistic, appropriate and sustainable brand growth. It also provides the necessary structure for customers, stakeholder and constituents to understand the value and “why” behind a brand’s offerings.

So, when we think about growth, brand architecture becomes a powerful planning tool to guide strategic expansion—as well as brand stretch and innovation development in a “from-the-brand’s-core” kind of way. Think of the brand architecture as a blueprint that will help you build a strong foundation for realizing your brand’s potential…without overextending or innovating in areas that just don’t make sense for the brand.

Done right, brand architecture not only helps to structure and organize a brand for growth, but it also helps to ensure the brand’s equity is reinforced and built upon.

Tips for Getting Started
Based on our experience guiding clients in brand expansion and innovation initiatives, here are four exercises that will help you leverage brand architecture to grow and stretch your brand.

1. Determine if your brand’s equity is strong enough and broad enough to stretch into potential new extension or expansion areas. Will stretching into a new area build your brand… or dilute it?

2. Assuming you have decided that your brand equity is suitable for expansion, you can now proceed to deciding where and when to stretch. Where are the opportunities for your brand from a growth standpoint? How far is too far? Keep in mind, stretch and growth should not be about adding a bunch of new products or varieties—it’s about building on your brand’s meaning and what it stands for in the hearts and minds of customers, consumers and stakeholders.

3. Once you’ve identified your brand’s current and proposed growth and/or stretch offerings, organize them in a way that makes sense for the brand, ensuring it is transparent, easy to understand and inspiring for customers, consumers and stakeholders.

4. After you’ve completed exercises 1-3, test it out and co-create! Bring it all to life through a working brand architecture model and share it out. Does it make sense to customers, consumers and stakeholders? Does it inspire them to want to explore your brand?

Ready to see how to leverage brand architecture to define stretch and growth opportunities for your business? Reach out to Sean Smyth to learn how Seed can help.

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