Every business needs to have structure. If you run an organization, whether it’s your own or if you work in a larger corporation, there are certain aspects of that company that need to be in order and organized so that they run smoothly and profitably.
One such aspect of business structure is known as brand hierarchy. What is brand hierarchy? How can you develop one? Here are answers to these questions and more regarding this valuable aspect of the business world.
What Is Brand Hierarchy?
A brand hierarchy is the organizational structure of your brand. It includes all of the elements that make up your brand, such as your name, logo, tagline, and so on. Creating a brand hierarchy helps you keep track of all of these elements and how they work together. Plus, it can help you develop new branding elements down the road.
Considerations before deciding on the brand hierarchy
1. What is the organizational structure of your company?
2. What are the business goals of your company?
3. What are the products or services that you offer?
4. What is the target market for your products or services?
5. What is the competition like for your products or services?
6. What is your company’s unique selling proposition (USP)?
7. What are the brand values of your company? 8. What is the personality of your company?
9. What words come to mind when people think about your company and its products or services?
10. Who are your competitors in the industry and what do they have in common with you?
Understanding the voice of your brand
When it comes to developing a brand hierarchy, the first step is understanding the voice of your brand. This means having a clear understanding of how you want your brand to be perceived by others. Are you friendly and approachable or more professional and reserved?
Once you know how you want your brand to sound, you can begin developing messaging that reflects this voice across all channels. That way, when people interact with your company in any way (from social media posts to phone calls), they will hear the same tone throughout.
For example, if someone wants to buy from us because we’re good listeners and offer helpful advice, we should make sure our website copy conveys these same qualities.
If we want them to feel cared for during their customer experience with us, our customer service team should demonstrate empathy when speaking with them on the phone.
If our goal is for customers to feel engaged with what we’re doing as a company, then social media posts should include photos of happy employees and celebratory moments at work–these are just some examples of how we might convey this message across different channels!
The bottom line is, it’s important to remember that even though one message may resonate best in one medium versus another, you still need to think about how each channel supports the overarching goals of your branding strategy.
Importance Of Brand Hierarchy
A brand hierarchy is important because it allows businesses to control how their brands are perceived. It also allows businesses to target different markets with different messages. Differentiation is key in business, and a brand hierarchy can help with that.
Having a clear brand hierarchy can also help when it comes to making decisions about marketing campaigns and strategies. Finally, a brand hierarchy can help protect your brand identity and keep your messaging consistent.
Suggestions for creating a brand hierarchy
1. A brand hierarchy is the way in which a company’s different products and services are organized.
2. The purpose of a brand hierarchy is to help consumers understand the relationship between a company’s different offerings.
3. A brand hierarchy can be created in a number of ways, but typically it includes three levels: the parent brand, sub-brands, and product lines.
4. The parent brand is the main umbrella under which all of the company’s products and services fall.
5. Sub-brands are secondary brands that usually have their own unique identity, but are still closely associated with the parent brand.
6. Product lines are collections of products that share certain attributes (i.e., type, quality level).
7. Companies should not underestimate the importance of having a well-defined hierarchy when communicating about their company or any given product or service.
8. For example, if you go into Starbucks and ask for your drink by its name (i.e., venti Americano), the barista will tell you there is no such thing; however, if you ask for an Americano, they will know exactly what you want!
9. In this scenario, Starbucks has done an excellent job creating a clear brand hierarchy where Americano is on one level below espresso (parent) while venti Americano falls below grande Americano (sub-brand).
10. Beyond defining how a company categorizes its different offerings, hierarchies also play an important role in marketing campaigns.
11. When creating a new campaign, marketers need to decide how they want to position the product/service and where it fits within the overall hierarchy. For instance, McDonalds might use Ronald McDonald as their main mascot across all marketing campaigns while using other characters like Grimace at specific times during promotions aimed at children.
Case studies – Examples from companies
In any business, but especially ones with multiple products or services, it’s important to have a clear brand hierarchy.
This refers to the way in which you communicate the different levels of your brand to consumers. A well-developed brand hierarchy will make it easy for customers to understand what you offer and how it fits into their lives.
But if your brand hierarchy is unclear, it can lead to confusion and frustration on the part of your customers.
So how can you develop a strong brand hierarchy? First, identify the different aspects of your brand – For example, for a company that sells coffee beans as well as coffee makers and coffee cups, its primary aspect might be its coffee beans (the quality), while its secondary aspect might be its coffee makers (the convenience). You should then prioritize these aspects so that they are represented at the top level.
You can do this by assigning certain adjectives to each category. Let’s say you want quality to be more important than convenience. Then assign an adjective like premium or gourmet to quality and something like standard or regular to convenience.
The impact of poor communication through brand hierarchy
In business, effective communication is key to success. Your brand hierarchy is the system you use to organize and direct your communications. It tells people who should talk to whom, about what, and how those messages should be delivered.
A strong brand hierarchy can help you avoid miscommunication, improve efficiency, and better connect with customers and employees. You want all of your communication to flow through a single channel that’s already understood by everyone involved.
That way, nobody has to worry about whether their message will get lost in translation or not communicated at all because it wasn’t sent in the right direction.
It also makes it easier for employees to do their jobs—they know exactly where they need to go for answers or assistance when they need it because everything has been laid out for them in a clear and systematic way. On top of that, you have much less chance of confusing customers when you have a clear line of authority that makes sense for them.
For example, if somebody calls customer service and doesn’t get an answer to their question, they won’t have any idea who else to call.
But if customer service directs them up the chain of command within your company so that they speak directly with someone from another department (such as marketing), then everybody knows what each person does and how information flows between teams.
In order to develop an effective brand hierarchy, start by establishing which channels are most important for reaching your target audience (social media? print ads? billboards?).
Once you determine which channels are most important, map out all the different ways in which these channels intersect within your organization (who handles social media content on behalf of PR?