Brand architecture: competing with yourself?
When products, services, and platforms overlap, your brand can end up competing with itself. Chris Erickson shares the questions to ask before you expand, reorganize, or launch.
Summary
Chris Erickson points out that any brand offering more than one service, product, or platform is already making brand architecture decisions, whether it realizes it or not. When those offerings overlap or compete, the brand starts working against itself through confusion, mixed messaging, and internal competition. Chris points to his article on brand architecture, which lays out the questions to ask before expanding, reorganizing, or launching anything new.
Highlights
- More than one offering means you’re already making brand architecture decisions.
- Overlapping offerings create confusion, mixed messaging, and internal competition.
- A good portfolio enhances your impact rather than diluting it.
Key insights
Architecture happens whether you plan it or not
Every new product, service, or sub-brand shapes how the whole portfolio reads. Choosing not to decide is still a decision.
Ask the questions before you launch
Knowing your audiences, avoiding cannibalization, and simplifying the offering are easier to settle before something new goes out the door than after.
Detailed analysis
Brand architecture can sound like a concern for big holding companies, but the problem shows up as soon as a brand has two things to sell. If those things chase the same audience or blur into each other, customers can’t tell them apart and teams end up competing for the same attention. Treating architecture as a deliberate set of choices keeps each offering distinct and makes the portfolio stronger as a whole.
Conclusion
If you’re adding products, spinning up a sub-brand, or feeling even a little brand confusion, work through the architecture questions first. It could save you years of confusion.
Hey friends, it’s Chris at Parliament.
If your brand offers more than one service, product, or platform, you’re already making brand architecture decisions, whether you realize it or not.
And here’s the challenge: when those offerings start to overlap or compete with each other, your brand can start working against itself. Confusion, mixed messaging, and internal competition. No bueno.
In a recent article, I outlined some key questions to ask yourself before you expand, reorganize, or launch anything new. You’ll learn how to identify your audiences, avoid cannibalization, simplify your offering, and build a portfolio that enhances rather than dilutes your impact.
If you’re adding new products or services, spinning up a subbrand, or even feeling a tiny bit of brand confusion, give this article a read. It could save you years of confusion.
All right, that’s it. Be brave. Stand apart.