Brand Layers, Meet Product and Service Layers

Do you need a single or multi-URL brand strategy?

Recently, there has a appeared in professional discourse a series of articles in which the term “brand layers” is used to identify the layers created by a company’s mission, vision, values, visual language, brand positioning and differentiation, brand space, etc.

The conclusion in this theory often seems to be that the sum of all the parts (the layers) creates the whole (the true brand). I do believe it is important to define and align a brand’s “layers“, but I don’t believe that together these things constitute the brand itself.

Rather, I think that brand should be defined as a standalone power. It is most rightly the pure essence of what’s behind the mark or name of a company. In creating your brand definition one should refer to the brand elements and extract the essence. Layering will confuse and blur the brand you are defining: it’s trying to force too much into the equation.

So why write about brand layers if I disagree with the concept it most commonly refers to?

I do so because in building brands and websites for companies we run into a much more tangible form of brand layers. By this, I mean the layers of company: product and service brands living in a single URL universe.

Complicating things further is fact that often these brand product-service layers can add elements of confusion and sometimes lessen the strength of the specific brand the consumer is trying to reach. Or worse – for reasons of internal politics and brand turf wars — a product or service brand can be so difficult to decipher, be so convoluted to find online that customers seek out a competitor’s products and services.

The simple solution is to abandon the single URL strategy and build product and service brand websites that are loosely connected to the company brand and main URL. For some companies this is the right way to go. For many, it’s best to stay with the single URL for better cross- and up-sell and because the company brand may provide a stronger trust factor.

Simply put, the brand architecture in a single URL brand strategy is: Company A has product brands X, Y and Z.

In a multi URL strategy, the architecture would represent that X is Company A’s product brand.

While this is a necessary simplification — an umbrella strategy is one path, taking a single-brand and audience focus is another. Apple and Ford, for example, are umbrella-strategy companies: all products and services clearly identified brand-wise as belonging to the mother ship. United Technologies and P&G represent the other philosophy: they build individual, free-standing brands and websites for their brands. And the consumer/customers of those individual brands generally think first about the indie brand, not the parent company. A company like Starr Wood falls somewhere in between. You can search all their hotel brands through their website, but you can also go to the individual brands and search for the place/brand you are looking for.

It’s illuminating to approach brand architecture from an online strategist’s perspective. We have developed a process around the Discovery and Planning phases of web projects that matches the discovery needed for a solid brand alignment job. We create personas to match all brand audiences. We use the personas to develop branded action paths to meet site business goals. As part of developing the information architecture we create a hierarchy of all product and services, the paths to get there and the customer interaction needed for every product and service. This tact includes positioning and differentiation for very aspect of a client’s brand.

Our approach is that we are developing an Online Business Model rather that just a website. To do that, we have to take into account all brand audiences, products and services, along with sales and business goals.

We believe it is vital to look to where the traffic is generated, to what particular action we want each audience to take on the site, how we want them to interact with the brand, and what brand perception we want to achieve after they have left. This includes reasons to comeback and a foundation for future dialog.

In other words, I’m not describing a way to fulfill the more commonly held “brand layers” theory here. I’m describing our take on a proper strategic fulfillment for dealing with the “layers” of your products and services — how many ever you may have.

Are your multiple products and services branded clearly as under the umbrella brand, or are they free-standing companies perceived as brands that just happen to be owned by a diverse parent?

Ask the question. And always remember that your situation is your own. The answer to the question requires real strategic thinking and prudent online execution.