Umbrella brand

As an umbrella brand, the parent brand of a so-called trade mark system is referred to within the marketing, the wide acceptance is characterized by a particularly high recognition value (range) and usually in the target group and even no actual services ( products / services) applies. It occurs mainly in group captive market communication and connecting the system to an indefinite number of so-called mono-brand and / or family brands under their image.

Goal of using

Brand policy in general has the task to stylize largely interchangeable products to a single brand and establish a differentiation to its competitors. The umbrella brand is here to branding a product image that carries over in the ideal case all company brands and ensures a consistent recognition even with diversified services. With regard to positioning and architecture of an umbrella brand with their associated product brands very long-term considerations must apply so that usually changes to the umbrella brand are rarely and very carefully made. In the U.S., about 90 percent of the new launches are already in supermarkets so-called mono-brand under one umbrella brand.

Examples

Goods

• Beiersdorf ( NIVEA, tesa ... )
• DANONE ( Activia, Actimel, Fruchtzwerge, Evian, Volvic ... )
• Ferrero ( kids, duplo, hanuta, nutella ... )
• Nestlé ( Maggi, Herta, MÖVENPICK, Theo Schoeller ... )
• Powerful Foods ( Mirácoli, Milka, Suchard ... )
• Unilever ( HB's ice cream, Rama, Knorr ... )
• Storck ( Toffifee, Knoppers, Merci ... )

Services

• "Alliance " is the umbrella brand for many services of Allianz SE and other holdings in German and international service companies.
• Liechtenstein was established in 2004 as an umbrella brand for tourist mono-brand of the Image Liechtenstein.

Possible Problems

The establishment of an umbrella brand is associated with high start-up costs, a temporary blur in brand image up to the establishment of the independent single-brand and especially with initially low acceptance of the brand in the market. A clear positioning is therefore very difficult. The internal communication or the internal marketing in the enterprise can not leave immediately on raising the awareness of a brand herself. The product life cycle of a brand is more likely to see in decades as months or years. In the early years often lack therefore a clear profile and thus the common identity for the new brand, which can lead to identification problems and lack of acceptance of the brand to the customer in the short to medium term. The lack of focus on specific target groups is another problem of an umbrella brand dar. Also, the characteristics of individual services, as eg Innovations or relaunch will not be considered. There is also the risk of negative goodwill effects (negative aspects of another product have an impact on the image of the product ) by the failure of individual services or by external events (eg, mass layoffs, environmental disasters).

Demarcation to Franchising

In contrast to the franchisor, who also established for its partners in the franchise system a brand, from a high recognition value is to go out, including the holder of an umbrella brand, mono brands of the parties. However, franchisees are still legally independent economic entities and are associated with the brand of the franchisor only by co-operation agreement. A direct impact on the franchisor in their general communication activities undertaken outside the partnership does not exist.