Brand Positioning · Brand architecture · Component
The portfolio map
Every brand and name in market, and how they currently relate — a list that is always longer than anyone expects.
The deliverable
What it is
Portfolios accumulate. Products acquire names, acquisitions keep theirs, internal codenames escape into documentation, and after a few years nobody can list them.
The map has to be generated rather than remembered, from what customers have actually encountered rather than from what the organisation considers a brand.
One level in
What it is made of
Each element is a constituent part of the component. Follow one to see the attributes it carries.
The relationships
How each name currently relates to the others.
3 attributes: Parent · Relationship · Customer connects
LearnThe cost
What maintaining each name costs.
3 attributes: Annual cost · IP protection · Recognition
Learn
Include feature names and escaped internal names. The ones nobody calls a brand are the ones causing confusion.
The other components in brand architecture
The relationship rule
What carries the master brand, what is endorsed, and what stands alone — decided as a rule rather than per launch.
LearnThe case per brand
What each separate brand buys that justifies maintaining it — assessed periodically, because most of them were never assessed at all.
Learn