What is Brand Architecture exactly?
In the same way that an architect will study the terrain prior to developing the concept or drawings, the Brand Architect will examine the market, competitors and trends and devise a long-term brand structure with concepts and universes as well as brand storytelling and story-building content strategies to provide brands with sustainable growth over a long term.
Developing New Brands
For a new brand, a new DNA must be created based on the long-term vision for the brand, what attributes it will need to reproduce, regenerate, enhance or reduce over a period of time. Ideally it will be timeless with the ability to cross borders and market categories in order to sustain itself forever. It’s a bit like an Architect determining whether the building will be a skyscaper or a modular structure which could evolve into a village. As such, brand naming, logos etc should not be created before the Brand Plan has been devised.
Brands need to encompass rational as well as emotional and spiritual elements. The higher value brands are expected to have a body, mind and soul. This is why designing a Brand Plan is such a highly complex task. A brand’s role is to remain desired and for that, it needs you to be part of its life.
Reviving Existing Brands
It is often far more difficult to revive an ailing brand than to create a new one, mostly because the tired brand already represents something that is being rejected or ignored. Think about how difficult it is to get someone who no longer loves you, to love you again?
Here is where the Brand Architect will start by looking at what ‘genetic modification’ the brand may need in order to reinvent itself. Here is where Anthropology and Psychology come into play. This is because a brand only exists in people’s minds. The extent to which their perceptions change will depend on the modifications made. It is for this reason that many Luxury Brand cases have not been published on this site. Discretion is fundamental.
What Brand Architecture is not
It is not simply a name, a design, a logo or a tagline.
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