The decision to create a sub brand is not always the right choice, in order to successfully create a sub brand you need to ensure your primary brand is in good shape and is healthy, by this we mean the main brand must be respected and operational.
Sub brands should only be used when targeting different sector, product or userbase. Sub brands are not always needed, an extension of the current brand will often be enough, along with quality marketing, to break into a new target market.
In order to create a good sub brand you must ask the following questions:
1. Is your brand fundamentally in good shape?
Marketers sometimes think they can ‘patch’ a brand’s weaknesses by sub branding into new innovations. For example, they’ll mutter to themselves ‘Consumers think we are old-fashioned; we’ll launch a sexy, new product to show them we’re actually “with it”’.
Unfortunately, sub branding a brand is not the same as fixing it, and simply launching a new product won’t cut the deal.
You need to ensure the relevancy of the brand’s positioning and the optimisation of its expression in the first instance. Only consider stretching if your core brand is inherently strong and healthy.
2. Have you exhausted growth opportunities on the core brand?
There are often untapped growth opportunities for existing brands that haven’t yet been leveraged, including distribution opportunities, fixing supply, optimising the mix, penetrating new occasions, growing awareness and trial, for example.
However exciting the appeal of a sub brand may be, if you haven’t yet exploited all the available opportunities for growth on the core brand, don’t walk away from these.
Consider trying to achieve both simultaneously if you have the means, but keep your eye on both balls so that you don’t neglect the core at the expense of brand stretch.
3. Have you defined a clear vision for your brand?
Sometimes it can feel like you are advancing your brand by being innovative and stretching it when, in reality, you may not have defined a future vision for the brand in the first place.
The brand vision defines where the brand wants to ‘play’, what it stands for and what it wants to become. It highlights who the competitors really are. Understanding and unpacking the brand truths is helpful input into thinking about brand vision.
4. Have you defined the essential character of your brand?
Brand character is not just a bullet list of personality traits in a brand positioning tool, it is an archetypal-inspired, rich character portrait that brings the brand to life in a way that leaves no doubt around its tonality, values, point of view, what it stands for, and so on.
This is because true character can be the glue that helps hold a brand together, especially when stretching a brand.
5. Can you deliver a real advantage versus what is currently available to consumers?
One of the single biggest risks in innovation is simply being a ‘me-too’. The same applies when innovating via sub branding. You need to ask questions such as ‘Can my brand really bring something totally unique and different, yet relevant, to this category?’ and ‘How will my sub brand better satisfy a real consumer need?’ If you can’t offer strong answers to these questions, you should forget about sub branding.
6. Do you clearly understand what is going to serve as the glue to hold your brand together?
Sometimes product characteristics are defining properties that consumers buy into. These product characteristics can transfer into other categories, going some way to being the brand glue.
For example, Dove soap bar’s stance for moisturising and mildness could transfer into other personal care categories, and Dettol’s germ kill properties could transfer into personal care and home care categories.
7. Do you have sufficient resources and are you ready to invest?
All innovation requires a considerable commitment to investment. Sometimes, an existing brand’s lacklustre growth is even attributable to the lack of investment, rather than much else. If you haven’t invested sufficiently in the core brand, perhaps you should get that right first. If you have, don’t underestimate the need to invest when going on to stretch your brand.
8. Have you neglected the core brand?
It’s only natural that, once you have decided to create a sub brand, the new activity becomes the area of focus and the resource and energy is poured into it. However, don’t forget the core brand still requires ongoing maintenance; don’t neglect it or treat it like a ‘stepchild’.
In conclusion a sub brand can be a useful marketing strategy to target new niche markets, but only if you have a strong core brand and a clear vision as to why the sub brand has been created. The sub brand can boots commercialisation of companies by along the brand to focus on an exact niche market.
