Branding is essential for your business as it allows you to build relationships that eventually births loyal customers. Branding takes different forms. Umbrella branding happens when you market separate products under a single brand name.
Umbrella brand products are similar in terms of function and features and are common with bigger brands that are recognizable and distinct.
Umbrella branding and family branding are used interchangeably when brands introduce two or three similar products to create more sales. In the contemporary business world, every product in the market is competitive.
With new products being introduced day in and day out, it’s no secret that as a brand, you need to always be on your toes to develop ideas to help you gain market share.
Importance of Umbrella Brands
The concept of umbrella brands holds onto the belief that customers associate a certain standard of quality with a brand. The goal of this strategy is always to increase your company’s market share and requires no extra costs when bringing the new product to the market.
Umbrella branding will help you build an audience, a powerful brand image, and a positioning strategy to increase customer loyalty.
Advantages of Umbrella Branding
Umbrella branding boosts customer loyalty. Prospective customers are more likely to purchase other products under the same brand. If you promote your products under umbrella branding, you can rely on word-of-mouth as customers read through reviews before buying.
Umbrella branding will save you advertising costs. With umbrella branding, you need no extra cost to bring onboard a new product to the market, build up a target audience, and have a powerful brand image. A famous logo will give more chances for your new product to thrive in the market under an umbrella. New products can leverage the success of other products.
Umbrella branding gives you a safety net to support your brand. You can launch a product out of the main category in the long run. At the same time, the success of one product can influence the success of other products leading to increased profitability.
Disadvantages of Umbrella Branding
A single mistake with umbrella branding can mess up the entire brand. Since the consequences of brand damage can be disastrous, it’s important to always pay attention to possible issues that may arise and find better ways to solve them. The failure of one product may also destroy the credibility of other products.
Production of unrelated products can raise questions among customers. While trying to diversify, you can easily be carried away to try and conquer every niche. Successful umbrella branding may require you to work with related products.
For instance, if you sell medications or perfumes, you may find it hard to convince customers to buy household appliances from you. Clients can get scared with each move as it may convince them that your motive is to raise revenue and not solve problems.
Customers expect high-quality products from any brand they support. While other products may not have competition in the market, it’s hard to maintain the same quality for all products. You may find yourself focusing more on particular goods and neglecting the quality of other products.
A simple branding mistake can ruin your business. Just as clients’ positive experience influences how they interact with a brand on their next encounter, so does your reputation get spoilt with one failure. If an advertising agency fronts a pen drawing at the expense of a design, the chances of spillover risk of one product on the other will go high, which can reduce the purchasing of the brand.
Umbrella Branding Versus Individual Branding
While umbrella branding promotes new products under the name of a popular brand, individual branding promotes every new product as a separate entity. It works best if you wish to promote a product from a different category, and it comes with several advantages for the brand.
Individual branding has no risks of your brand losing everything, including its reputation, allows marketers to choose a completely different strategy for the product; and a new product is not tied to the brand as it carries a different name, logo, colors, tagline, imagery, among other branding elements.
Both strategies are worth your consideration. All you need to do is look at factors such as your knowledge of the target audience, your unique value proposition, and think outside the box. Other factors that could guide you through choosing a branding strategy include your objective, taglines, passion, and consistency.
