What is your organisation’s architecture?

Take a moment to map out your organisation’s brand architecture.

Download the file so that you can complete the exercise.

Complete this exercise by answering these questions:

• What is your organisation’s parent brand? Fill in the blue box with the name of your organisation.
• List all of your organisation’s products. If you have a website, looking there to ensure all products mentioned are listed is helpful. Remember, a product is any object, offering, or service your audience receives from you.
• Do you have any known sub-brands? If so, write them in the purple box(es). If not, chances are you don’t need any, but we’ll make sure. Keep going!
• If you have multiple locations, list them. Do they serve the same kind of audience and offer the same or similar products? If so, these can likely serve as signposts rather than distinct sub-brands. If your locations serve different audiences or offer different products (if they have unique value propositions), then they are likely each their own sub-brand. 
  
  Put each signpost in a grey box and each sub-brand in a purple box.
• Look at your list of products and try to categorise them. Using the criteria you’ve learned for a sub-brand, ask yourself if any of these categories fit that definition. If so, put each sub-brand in a purple box. If you have a category that does not meet the criteria of a sub-brand, write it in a grey box as a signpost.

At this point, you should be able to map out your parent brand, sub-brands, products, and any signposts you are using to categorise products. Now let’s determine which style of architecture best fits this map. If you have sub-brands, will the audiences of your sub-brands benefit most from them staying closely related to the parent brand, or from them having more distinction? If you feel like they should stay more closely related, you should follow a branded house model. If you feel like they should be more distinct, you should follow a house of brands model. Of course, there’s always the option for a hybrid, too.

6. Circle the style of architecture you think best fits your organisation.

• Branded House
• House of Brands
• Hybrid
  
  After this exercise, continue to spend some time thinking about your brand architecture, then get the input of others at your organisation as well. Be sure to consider not only the current state of your organisation, but the future vision for it as well. Once you feel confident in your map, I encourage you to stick with it!