The Relationship Between Strong Brands and Brand Systems

Even companies that have achieved significant growth often began with a single product. For example, Ajinomoto and Yakult, the product/service that has led the company since its establishment or until its growth period has become a strong brand that also functions as a corporate brand. This is not only because the brand is identifiable as a source-display function, but also because it is an “umbrella brand” that spreads the sense of quality and security expected from a strong product/service brand to other products and services. In recent years, Fuji Heavy Industries has rebranded the Subaru brand, which had been a passenger car business brand, as a corporate brand, and Rakuten has been utilizing its strong brand as a corporate brand by sequentially converting various services to the Rakuten brand. Since the birth of the Internet, the amount of information distributed has dramatically increased, and the effort and cost of brand communication has risen.

Dyson, a home appliance manufacturer, is famous for “the only vacuum cleaner that never loses suction power. Suppose there are refrigerators bearing the logos of both Dyson and a major home appliance manufacturer. While the general appliance manufacturer’s products have a sense of security due to its history and corporate scale, the Dyson product may be more attractive because it may have some special features or use completely new technology. This is because of Dyson’s brand image as an “advanced product” in a “limited product category.
In some cases, it is easier to maintain a strong image if the scope of the brand is specific and limited, because it is important for a brand to have not only fame derived from recognition but also value that creates expectations.

Company A, a major transportation infrastructure company, has operated an infrastructure service brand since its establishment. In recent years, the company has expanded the scope of its services from this infrastructure services brand to other businesses related to transportation infrastructure, and has been actively expanding overseas as well.

The core infrastructure service brand was well known and was used to facilitate communication, from various service communications to customers to corporate communications for recruitment, stock markets, and so on.
But what is this brand? Is it a brand for the infrastructure services business that has existed since the company’s founding, a brand for the new infrastructure services that continue to be developed, or a corporate brand that encompasses all of these? Because this definition (brand concept) was not clear, the rules for brand use were not defined, and a wide variety of brand names and logos were derived, but not enough to create a strong sense of unity.

In deciding how to define this infrastructure service brand, we studied two major possibilities: The first was to create a corporate brand that would encompass all of the company’s activities. By unifying and maximizing the use of the most recognizable brand, communication costs are reduced, and it is simpler and easier to handle from an operational standpoint. The other pattern is to establish a corporate brand and strengthen the service brand as a business brand that encompasses a certain range of services. The advantage of this pattern is that the business scope of the service brand is specified, so it is easier to create a distinctive brand, and it is also easier to manage other brands at the same time. As a result of our discussions, we decided to implement rebranding in the latter pattern, which is advantageous for various future business development, including overseas expansion, and strengthens the most important brand.

Our first step was to reorganize and strengthen the corporate brand. We kept the corporate name as it had been since the company’s founding, and as it was an asset that had been well-known through the company’s past activities. On the other hand, the existing corporate philosophy was already in place under the infrastructure services brand, so a new corporate philosophy was developed to accommodate the possibility of further business expansion in the future, and a corporate slogan was also created for communication purposes. The corporate brand had previously only been represented by a logotype, but a new symbol mark was developed to strengthen the symbolism. This was a major rebranding effort that included improvements to everything except the corporate name.

The service brand was already familiar to a large number of consumers, so we aimed for a rebranding that sought “efficient functionality” rather than “change. A brand concept was established to define the service brand, and the service group to be encompassed was clarified. The individual service names were given a “brand name + generic name” structure, with the brand name as the only unique name, to focus the brand on a single point. Since the logo was originally derived from the signage of the infrastructure service since its inception, we decided to make it flexible enough to be used at various touchpoints of the expanded infrastructure service, and we stripped away unnecessary design elements to adopt a simple, modern, and powerful logo.

In today’s information environment, a brand that serves as a starting point for communication must be consolidated or else efficiency will suffer. On the other hand, an all-encompassing brand also makes the promise of the brand and the perceived value of the brand vague, and as a result, makes it difficult to create good communication. Although there is no absolute answer to this question, by considering brand development consistent with corporate philosophy and business strategy, and by structuring the brand in consideration of not only name recognition but also meaning and value provided, it will be possible to develop a brand that leverages the company’s strong brand.