Brand Architecture in Services: The Example of Retail Financial Services

The term “brand architecture” refers to an organisation’s approach to the design and management of its brand portfolio. In particular, brand architecture decisions are concerned with the number of brands to utilise, the role of specific brands and the relationship between such brands. It has been posited that services organisations tend to adopt a corporate brand approach to the management of their brand architecture, having a propensity to rely, in the main, on one overarching brand. The study reported here investigates this contention in the context of financial services, using a number of semi-structured interviews with senior marketing managers. Findings indicate that although some support for the corporate branded approach was apparent, the dominant strategy is a “multi-corporate” approach, where the brand architecture comprised a family of main brands. The main motivations for such an approach are to maintain strong relationship franchises with different customer groups and/or to signal distinct competencies to the marketplace. As expected, the data shows little support for the approach of branding individual services or the wide-scale use of subbrands.

[1]  M. Petromilli,et al.  Brand architecture: building brand portfolio value , 2002 .

[2]  E. Nijssen,et al.  Executive Insights: Integrating Branding Strategy across Markets: Building International Brand Architecture , 2001 .

[3]  L. De Chernatony,et al.  From brand vision to brand evaluation , 2001 .

[4]  L. Chernatony,et al.  Corporate marketing and service brands ‐ Moving beyond the fast‐moving consumer goods model , 2001 .

[5]  C. Perry,et al.  Qualitative Marketing Research , 2001 .

[6]  David A. Aaker,et al.  The Brand Relationship Spectrum , 2000 .

[7]  Leslie de Chernatony,et al.  The Service Brand as Relationships Builder , 2000 .

[8]  Bruno Dyck,et al.  The Formation of Breakaway Organizations: Observations and a Process Model , 1999 .

[9]  Leslie de Chernatony,et al.  Experts' Views About Defining Services Brands and the Principles of Services Branding , 1999 .

[10]  James F. Devlin,et al.  Adding value to service offerings: the case of UK retail financial services , 1998 .

[11]  L. Chernatony,et al.  Defining A "Brand": Beyond The Literature With Experts' Interpretations , 1998 .

[12]  S. Fineman.  Emotional Subtexts in Corporate Greening , 1996 .

[13]  Lance A. Bettencourt,et al.  Customization of the service experience: the role of the frontline employee , 1996 .

[14]  Eric Haley,et al.  How French Advertising Professionals Develop Creative Strategy , 1996 .

[15]  John M. T. Balmer,et al.  Corporate Branding and Connoisseurship , 1995 .

[16]  William L. Boyd,et al.  Customer Preferences for Financial Services: An Analysis , 1994 .

[17]  J. Saunders,et al.  Branding Financial Services , 1993 .

[18]  Sally Dibb,et al.  The Strength of Branding and Positioning in Services , 1993 .

[19]  John M. T. Balmer,et al.  Building Societies: Change, Strategy and Corporate Identity , 1991 .

[20]  A. Page,et al.  Unleashing the Power of Service Brands in the 1990s , 1990 .

[21]  Catherine C. Marshall,et al.  Designing Qualitative Research , 1989 .

[22]  L. Berry.  Cultivating service brand equity , 2000 .

[23]  W. Olins,et al.  The New Guide to Identity , 1995 .

[24]  V. Zeithaml.  How Consumer Evaluation Processes Differ between Goods and Services , 1981 .