Brand Architecture
It’s important to use and follow a branding architecture to avoid confusion about your
company, it’s products, their features and other names used in campaigns and
sponsorships.
Here’s an architecture to follow:
The company - this is the most important name you have to have. This represents
your values, personality, mission, vision etc as your brand (e.g. Microsoft)
The product line - a family of multiple products that are related to each other (e.g.
Office)
Individual products - the products within a family, either different variations or
component products of the core family (e.g. OfficePro)
Product versions - as the specific individual products evolve, this is the means of
keeping track (e.g. OfficePro 95)
Ingredient names - the lasting technologies or unique concepts that cut across more
than one product (e.g. Intellisense, Retsin)
Feature names - usually version specific functionality, that you want to highlight in
promotion but not in packaging (e.g. Pivot Tables, the Blue Dot)
Program names - not products, but supporting efforts that are worthy of naming,
putting marketing investment behind.