Brand architecture: it’s no joke (published Summer 2020)
Then along came technology and changed the status quo.
Perhaps you’ve heard the one about a traveller asking a local for directions, only to receive the response: “If you want to go there, I wouldn’t start from here.” A few legal marketers and technology managers might be thinking they would have started their journeys differently, too! The place you start from can make all the difference in terms of eventual success. Conversely, starting from the wrong place can increase the difficulty of reaching your intended destination. A quick glance at the innovation section of the websites of some big law firms – showing a decidedly smorgasbord approach to tech products and services – suggests there may be bumps and obstacles in the road ahead. Expect it to get bumpier. Digitisation is accelerating, and big firms are ramping up efforts to help clients manage their regulatory requirements digitally. Inevitably, this will lead to more products, service lines and (potentially) practice groups. Without effective brand management, the task of assisting clients by creating clarity and understanding around how each part fits together is set to get harder. So, how did we get to this position? Many factors contribute, but one key theme is the absence of a robust strategy for brand architecture: in other words, a coherent approach for defining the relationship between the corporate brand, sub-brands, products, product variants and acquired businesses. Prior to the emergence of tech, law firms (as with most firms in professional services) hardly required a strategy at all. Many defaulted to using the corporate brand for everything: after all, one name was easier for partners and clients to identify with, and made it easier for partners to cross-sell, and for the firm to manage and develop brand awareness.
Typically, tech is developed at practice, sector or country level, usually in response to a specific client problem. Developments in what tech is called and what it looks like are made at these levels, too. Often, tech is developed in isolation from other areas of the firm. The cumulative effect of this bottom- up approach can be a disjointed collection of names and identities. This makes it harder for the firm to achieve anything like clarity, synergy, and distinction. But what is brand architecture, really? Brand architecture enables a firm to define and communicate relationships between its different brands. It also shows how the corporate brand plays a part (if at all) in the marketing of products and services. This top-down approach shapes how a company communicates and markets its products, and affects the organisation of teams and the structure of budgets. Increasingly, as they structure and market their tech solutions, law and other professional services firms should be using brand architecture (long used in large, multi-branded organisations such as FMCG businesses). Most aren’t yet doing so: as they add more and more products, they will find themselves in a mess.There are three main models to help firms to organise their brands, as follows. Monolithic: This is the default category for professional services firms, using the awareness and credibility of the main corporate brand (Hogan Lovells, for example) to bundle a group of tech and resourcing solutions. A variant is for firms to draw on sub-branding to distinguish legal delivery from legal expertise (as with Ashurst Advance and BCLP Cubed). Endorsed: In contrast to sub-branding, a separately endorsed brand becomes the hero. This has a distinct identity (visually and by name) and uses the master brand’s endorsement solely as a quality stamp (Konexo, for example, is a division of Eversheds Sutherland).
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