Name of the company

Often, especially in industrial field only the name of the company is promoted (advertised).  The association of the company with the names of products and services is called”brand structure”. The decisions regarding the names of companies and products and their interconnections depend on more than a dozen strategic moves.

In this case the strong brand (or name of the company)becomes a means for a number of brand names(for example Mercedes-Benz or Black & Decker) or for a number of auxiliary brand names(such as Cadbury Dairy Milk , Cadbury Flake or Cadbury Fingers  the United Kingdom).

Individual branding

Each brand has a separate name for example – Seven – Up, Kool – Aid or Nivea Sun (Beiersdorf), which can compete with other brand names of the same company for example Persil , Omo , Surf and Lynx (Unilever)   

Candidate brands

A brand like this is a brand which is not a market leader neighter in the product market, nor in the submarket. For example Challenger brands are  classified according to their features, they don’t have a big portion in the market yet, but have business ambitions that are beyond their means. As a rule such brands have an intention of making changes in that field.

Strategy of brands consisting of several trademarks

In case of brands consisting of several trademarks the company uses the same name for all the products of the same class. Multi-brand brands are also known as corporate, family or umbrella brands. The companies using a corporate branding are Microsoft, Samsung, Apple and Sony, because the name of the company is identical to their brand. The strategy consisting of several trademarks has many advantages.  It allows to use product equality. those consumers who have good have good impressions after using the given product will, in turn, have a positive opinion of other products under the same brand name.

Expansion of product range

Expansion of the product range is a way of entering a new market.  An example of it is the Campbell soup, which is a manufacturer of mainly canned soups. They use the multi-profile strategy of brand expanding the soup line.  They have condensed, fresh, organic and other varieties of soups of more than 100 flavours such as the common Campbell soup.  This approach is considered as favorable, because it may lead to the advertising promotion at a lower cost price.  This is conditioned by the fact that the same name is used in all products, increasing the level of recognition of brand.  Despite the fact that line expansion can have negative consequences, one of which is that other positions in the company's line can be put at at unfavorable conditions due to the expansion of sales.  The increase in the product range works the best when they increase the company's revenues by attracting new customers or reducing the sales of competitors.  

Sub-branding

Sub-branding is used by some branding companies having a number of brands.  Sub brand combines a corporate, family, or umbrella brand through the introduction of a new brand to distinguish one part of a product line from others, in overall brand system.  The sub-brand helps to form and submit a proposal in the market.  Gatorade and Porsche can be considered as successful examples of a successful sub-brand.  Gatorade producer of food products and sport beverages has effectively presented G2, a low calorie Gatorade beverage.   In the same way Porsche a specialized producer of cars successfully sells its comparably cheap Porsche Boxster and the more expensive Porsche Carrera cars.

Expansion of product range

Expansion of a brand is another way of using the current brand to enter the class of another production. Having a strong product capital enables to expand your brand.  Nevertheless the expansion of a brand has its disadvantages.  There is a danger that too many options for using one brand can lead to oversaturation of the market, which will weak the brand.  We may observe the brand expansion on the example of Kimberly - Clark and Honda brands.  Kimerly – Clark is a company producing personal care and healthcare products, which may be expanding in the market of Huggies brand of bath accessories for babies and children.  The success of expansion strategy of this brand is obvious, because the given product has a sale of USD 500 mln per year.  Similarly, Honda, using its respected name for automobiles, has been expanded to other products such as motorcycles, electrical appliances, engines, robots, airplanes and bicycles.     

Co-branding

Co-branding is an option of brand expansion.  This is here that one product is created, which combines two products of the same producer.  Co-branding has its advantages: it allows to introduce new product classes to the market and use an already known brand in the class of that product.  An example of co-branding success is the work with Whitaker and Lewis Road Creamery to create a joint product which is called Lewis Road Cremery and Whittaker Chocolate Milk.  This product is extremely successful in New Zealand market.

Multi-brand strategy

A multi-brand strategy is when the company gives its name to each product.  A multi-brand strategy is used the best by as an approach by the product when each brand is intended for a specific market segment.   The multi-brand product is used in different ways when separate companies group their brands according to prices and quality.  Each brand of more than 100 brands offered by Procter & Gamble (P & G) a company of multi-brand consumer products is comfortable.  For example Head & Shoulders helps the consumers to get rid of dandruff shamppo, Oral – B offering products for teeth- Vicks producing  which produces cough and cold remedies, and Downin, which offers clothes dryers and fabric softeners.  There are other companies of multi-brand products such as Coca-cola,  Nestlé, Kellogs and Mars.      

This approach usually leads to promotion and increase of advertising expenses.  This is conditioned by the fact that the companies must inform the consumers and retail business about each new product without the previous impressions.  The multi-brand strategy has a number of advantages.  There is no danger that the failure of product will affect other products in the line because each brand is unique to each market segment.  Though some large companies have faced with the fact that the expenses and complexity of implementing a multi-brand strategy may shadow the advantages.   For example Unilever the second largest consumer goods company, recently further streamlined its brands from more than 400 brands to focus on 14 brands with sales of more than €1 billion.  Unilever did that removing goods and selling them to other companies. Other companies of other brands represent a new product range as a defensive response to competition.

Staregy of private branding

A private brand (also known as the seller's brand, private label, branded products or proprietary brands) is becoming more and more popular.  An example of a private branding is when the company produces products but they are sold in the name of a wholesaler or retailer.  The private brand is known because it generally brings big profit to manufacturers and resellers.  The prices of private brands are usually cheaper than those of the competing brands.  These prices tend to the consumers because they befine a lower quality and criteria, but those views are changing.

Strategy of mixed branding

Strategy of mixed branding is when the company sells products under its own name and that of reseller because the segment attracted by the reseller differs from its own market. For example Elizabeth Arden, Inc., a big American cosmetic and perfumes company uses the mixed branding strategy.  The company sells its Elizabeth Arden brand under department stores and Walmart simple brand of skincare products.  Accordingly, such products as Whirlpool, Del Monte and Dial produce private brands of household appliances, animal food and soap.  Other examples of mixed branding strategies can be found at Michelin, Epson, Microsoft, Gillette and Toyota.   Michelin one of the largest producers of tires has enabled Sears a US retailer to put its brand on tires. “Microsoft” a multi-national IT company is seriously viewed as a corporate IT brand but it sells its but it is selling its versatile home entertainment center under the Xbox brand to better match its new and crazy identity. Gillette has been serving to Gillette for Women for women, which became known as Venera.  Venera brand came to supplement the market of female consumers in the field of male razors dominating previously.  Similarly, Toyota car manufacturer had been using mixed branding.  Toyota had been considered as a valuable car brand in the United States which was saving, has a family orientation and was known as a car that rarely failed.   But Toyota tended to win the more expensive market segment, so they created Lexus luxury class cars.

Branding “no brand”

Recently a number of companies have sucxessfully implemeted a strategy of “no brand”, creating packages copying the general simplicity of brand.  Examples are Muji Japanese company and Floridian No-Aid Sunscreen company. Despite the fact that there is a Muji special brand, their product is not a brand.  This “non-branding”strategy means that less is spent on advertising or classic marketing, and Muji's success is attributed to word-of-mouth, a simple shopping experience, and a counter-observation movement.  The “no brand” branding cannot be considered as a type of branding, because the product becomes noticeable due to its absence.  Another good example of a branding strategy is “Tapa Amarilla” or “Yellow cap” in Venezuela in the 1980s.  The name of the company was published in the color of the cover of the cleaning products of this company.           

Derivative products

In this case the supplier of the main component of the final product used by a number of suppliers may have a desire to promote this component as an individual brand. An example cited most frequently is Intel, which has its own place in the PC market under the slogan Intel Inside.