Aaker & Joachimsthaler (2000): The Brand Relationship Spectrum: THE KEYTOTHE BRAND ARCHITECTURE CHALLENGE
27 important questions on Aaker & Joachimsthaler (2000): The Brand Relationship Spectrum: THE KEYTOTHE BRAND ARCHITECTURE CHALLENGE
What has created the new discipline brand architecture and why?
- Market fragmentation, channel dynamics, global realities, and business environments have created "brand architecture"
- It deals with relationships and structures not unlike those facing an architect who must design the structure and layout of rooms, buildings, and cities
What is brand architecture?
What are the advantages of the shadow endorser as a subcategory in the house of brands strategy?
- The fact that the brands are not visibly linked makes a statement about each brand, even when the link is discovered.
- It communicates that the organization realizes that the shadow-endorsed brand represents a totally different product and market segment.
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To what can a coherent brand architecture lead?
- Impact, clarity, synergy
- Leverage rather than market weakness, confusion, waste, and missed opportunities
The brand relationship spectrum consists of 4 basic strategies and 9 subdimensions. Which ones?
- House of Brands
- Not Connected
- Shadow Endorser
- Endorsed Brands
- Token Endorsement
- Linked Name
- Strong Endorsement
- Subbrands
- Co-Drivers
- Master Brand as Driver
- Branded House
- Different Identity
- Same Identity
What is the difference between the branded house strategy and the house of brands strategy?
- Branded house strategy
- Uses a single master brand to span a set of offerings that operate with only descriptive subbrands. Operating a large number of products under the master brand using
- House of brands strategy
- Involves an independent set of stand-alone brands, each maximizing the impact on a market. Little link to the brands
In which situation is the subbrand a co-driver?
- When both the master brand and the subbrand have major driver roles, it is considered a co-driver situation.
- The master brand is performing more than an endorser role.
Example: Customers are buying and using both Gillette and Mach3; one does not markedly dominate the other. Usually, for
this to be the case, the master brand already has some real credibility in the product class. Gillette, with its innovation over the years, has become a brand that enjoys loyalty in the razor category.
Mach3 is a particularly innovative razor, however, and so it too merits and receives loyalty.
What is the brand relationship spectrum and what is it intended for.
- It is a powerful brand architecture tool
- It is intended to help brand architecture strategists to employ (gebruik maken van), with insight and subtlety, subbrands and endorsed brands. This can make a brand architecture work in a complex environment
What are the main 5 reasons for using a house of brands strategy?
- Targeting niche markets with functional benefits positions
- Avoiding a brand association that would be incompatible with an offering
- Signaling breakthrough advantages of new offerings
- Owning a new product class association by using a powerful name that reflects a key benefit
- Avoiding or minimizing channel conflict
The brand relationship spectrum is related to the driver role that brands play. What is meant by the driver role?
- When a person is asked, "What brand did you buy (or use)?" the answer they give will be the brand that had primary driver role responsibility for the decision
What are the 3 advantages of using the endorsed brand strategy?
- An endorsement by an established brand provides credibility and substance to the offering and usually plays only a minor driver role
- The emotional and self-expressive benefits of the product brand are maintained, because the product brand is distinct from the organizational brand
- Another motivation for endorsing a brand is to provide some useful associations for the endorser. A successful, energetic new product or an established market leader brand can enhance an endorser.
What does the token endorser entail as substrategy from the endorsed brands strategy?
- The token endorser will not have center stage; the endorsed brand will be featured
- The role of the token endorser is to provide some reassurance and credibility while still allowing the endorsed brands maximum freedom to create their own associations
The house of brands strategy allows firms to....?
What is important for making the endorser brands strategy work?
What does the branded house strategy entail?
- In a branded house strategy, a master brand moves from being a primary driver to a dominant driver role across multiple offerings.
- The subbrand goes from having a modest driver role to being a descriptor with little or no driver role.
Example Virgin: Virgin Jeans, Virgin Cola, Virgin Music, etc.
What does the subbrands strategy entail?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a branded house strategy?
- It is difficult to maintain a cool image or a quality position with a large market share.
- It can limit the firm's ability to target specific groups; compromises must be made.
Advantages
- It enhances clarity, synergy, and leverage and thus should be the default brand architecture option.
What is one common role of a subbrand?
a meaningful new segment-as (for example from juice to snack foods)
By using some questions you can analyze if you go more towards a branded house or towards a house of brands. Which questions are those?
Which link is closer: Those of the subbrands and their master brand or those of the endorsers and the endorsed brands?
The master brand needs to add value (or gain value) by becoming attached to a new product offering in the branded house scenario. It can add value by adding which 4 aspects?
- Assciations enhancing the value propositions
- Make the product more appealing, transfer positive and relevant associations, etc.
- Credibility with organizational associations
- Visibility
- Communication efficiencies
What does the linked name entail as substrategy from the endorsed brands strategy?
- A name with common elements creates a family of brands with an implicit or implied endorser
- Linked names allow more ownership and differentiation than a descriptor brands strategy
- Example: McDonald's: McNuggets, McMuffin, Big Mac, etc.
What is both a risk and an opportunity of the closeness between the subbrands and the master brand?
When the same brand is used across products, segments, and countries, one of two implicit assumptions is usually made, both of which are counterproductive to creating an optimal brand architecture. Which two are those?
- There can be different brand identities and positions in every context despite the common brand name.
- The use of dozens of brand identities, however, creates brand anarchy and is a recipe for inefficient and ineffective brand building.
- There is a single identity and position everywhere even though the imposition of a single brand identity risks a mediocre compromise that is ineffective in many of its contexts.
- In fact, there usually needs to be a limited number of identities that share common elements but that have distinctions as well.
Will the master brand be strengthened by a brand extension or brand endorsement?
When will a new brand name simply be not feasible and why?
- If the business is ultimately too small or short-lived to support necessary brand building.
- It is costly and difficult to establish and maintain a brand, almost always much more so than expected or budgeted.
The brand relationship spectrum, with its four branding routes, is a powerful tool. Do nearly all organizations use a mixture of all of them or choose purely one of the strategies?
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