Independent brand, stand-alone brand, freestanding brand, house of brands are all synonymous... Proctor & Gamble and Illinois Tool Works are examples.

Overbrand, endorsed brand, parent/sub-brands, family brand and range brand = Ford/Tarus, HP/LaserJet, Emerson/Appliance Solutions, Emerson/Climate Technologies, Emerson/Storage Solutions - etc.

Masterbrand, Corporate, Company = GE, Caterpillar

Ref: the Case for B2B Branding by Bob Lamons


BARQ
SELMARQ, Brands' Best Friend

Hi Mina

I wish I knew where you were located then perhaps I would give you a homegrown example of global brand hierarcy oriented companies. But at least you can relate to one of these

1. Coca-cola(Soft drinks)
2. Unilever(Soap toothpaste)
3. Diageo (Alcohol
4. Nestle(Cereals, Hot drinks)

I shall take Diageo for example: the makers of Green blue, black, red labels of whisky. They are also the makers of Bailey's Irish cream, Smirnoff Vodka ..... in East Africa they are also affiliated to the Brewereis (East African Breweries)

To define the hierarchy lets take the whisky example

1. You have scotch whisky as the mother brand
2. Then you have Green, Blue, Black, Red etc as your Brands with the Cash cow e.g Black being the premium brand. Perhaps a brand manager for each depending on the size of its market, budget, return on investment etc
3. Then you have the format i.e. the packaging 750ml bottles then 50 mls bottles etc
3. Brands like Vodka have the variants stage in their hierarchy u can look at variants (e.g smirnoff ice red or black... in case you have different flavours in the same price range.....
4 . Then look at the formats in 250 mls bottles, 50mls and sometimes sachets etc

I hope this can give you a rough idea of brand hierachies
anohter example is;

B) Nestle- Mother Brand

2 You have Coffee, Milk, etc as sub brands
3 Then Variants.... in case you have different flavours in same price category
4. Format is the packaging eg tins sachets and grammage

Get my drift.......

BR

EK