How can you introduce new brands or products without diluting your brand?

No matter how pioneering or dominant a brand might seem, no good market last forever uncontested. Eventually, competitors see the opportunities and want a piece of the pie. Instead of attacking you frontally, they pick off your most vulnerable customers at the edges of your brand and market. Companies often respond by adding more features to the value proposition to address these concerns, but if they're not careful, they can lose their leadership position by stretching the brand meaning too far. As companies grow, scale, and mature, they often need to create new brands and products that address different consumer needs and concerns. But it's critical not let these new brands and products blur into each other. Brand separation is key.

Our core services provide entrepreneurs an one-stop apparel manufacturing process from sourcing materials, create prototypes, define and refine fit specifications to Made in the USA sustainable small batches. We also provide, as an extension to our core services, brand identity creation to DTC platform design to get our customers‘ brands off the ground seamlessly. Basically, supply chain efficiency leveraging on shore advantages.

To help companies with multiple brands/products, we help them determine whether their preferred Brand Architecture Model is a Branded House, Endorsed Brand, or House of Brands. A Branded House like Apple or Harvard has a monolithic approach that presents one overarching parent brand with strong product-level brands. Endorsed Brands like Marriott and Adobe have multiple sub-brands associated with or endorsed by the parent brand but live and act independently. A House of Brands model like P&G and GM are perceived as holding companies with a portfolio of sub-brands, such as Charmin, Pampers, Swiffer, Tide, and Crest in the case of P&G, and Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC in the case of GM. Each of these models has pros and cons to consider.

Many organizations try to manage different brands using the same management team and business practices. While there are many efficiencies to conducting business this way, the different brands inevitably blur, blend, and look like each other. Ideally, companies with multiple brands and products should not strive to "integrate" the brands but instead "segregate" them. No matter how many pieces and parts Toyota and Lexus share regarding engines or chassis design, they never show these vehicles on the same car lot. And no matter how many efficiencies or economies of scale can be gained by marketing Toyota and Lexus in the same ads, the parent companies never allow this because the audience appeal and reasons for buying are entirely different.

Every organization I work with has periodic meetings to review their accounting, legal, and HR practices. But can you imagine how out of whack the books would be if managers didn't meet to review things for 5 or 10 years? They'd be an utter mess and a risk to the organization's health and stability. However, it's quite common for me to go into organizations and find they have no regular meetings or dedicated staff to oversee, manage, monitor, or assess their brand's health. For this reason, we set up an internal Brand Stewardship Committee whose responsibility is to assess the health, vitality, and livelihood of their brands. This group evangelizes the values, beliefs, and felonies of the brand to others entrusted with carrying the brand.

Organizations tend to be territorial and protective about what they're working on. They aren't always comfortable letting others know about their brand initiatives or product developments. However, this behavior is not natural but a product of corporate structure, titles, and hierarchical environment. With over 30 years of working with companies, I've learned that managers who brainstorm regularly and share their ideas with others frequently find the collaborative, creative process enjoyable and beneficial. Part of the Brand Stewardship Committees' job is to regularly review the progress, results, and learnings of the various brand initiatives in the organization, which breaks down those barriers and fosters an environment of creativity.