Designing Branding Strategies
Branding strategy is an important concept in marketing planning. With the help of effective branding strategy the firms can help the customers understand what products and services are offered by them and make a positive image and space in the minds of the customers. There are two main concepts of Branding strategy which is brand product matrix and brand hierarchy, which help the branding strategies to define relationship among various brands and the products. The branding strategy in the firm help to recognize the number of brand elements that have been used in the products sold by them and identify which have common or distinctive brand elements in them.
Role Played by Brand Strategy 
There are two distinctive roles that is performed by brand strategy or brand architecture
- Clarifying the meaning of the brand and creating brand awareness which can be done through by making the consumers understand the similarities and differences between the different set of products.
- Other important role is motivation to improvise on the image of the brand by transferring the equity from the brand to the individual products and thus increasing the frequency of purchases.
Brand Product Matrix
It is an important component of Brand Architecture. In this matrix the rows define the brand –product relationship which includes extension in the line and category of the product, whereas the columns represent the product –brand relationship which includes Brand portfolio which is the number of different brands marketed for a product class sold by a firm.
Brand Hierarchy
It is a diagrammatic representation of depicting the branding strategy of the firm which represents the order of the brand elements used to create a brand.
There are different levels of brand hierarchy which are as follows :
- Corporate brand
- Family brand
- Individual brand
- Modifier
These levels represent how brand hierarchy can be created.
Corporate brand equity occurs when there is a strong and unique association about the corporate brands in the minds of the customers. The association cover a more wide range than just a product brand.
Family brands are those brands that can be used to wide range of the product categories offered by a particular firm. It is a method of linking a common feature to large number of distinct product.
Individual brands are those that is applied to a single product category. There can be multiple product type that can be offered on the basis of packages, sizes, tastes, etc.
Modifiers are the feature that create differences in the brand related to the quality offered by a brand, specifications and functionalities performed.
