Know-How Exchange : Branding

RATIONALISE - bring all branding/literature into one point. You are usually always best to have one umbrella brand that is instantly recognisable then to develop the individual brand personalities for the different divisions.
In reality suggesting this will fall on deaf ears, so you will probably need to split the branding between the different divisions, but they all need to get together to determine the overall Brand Guidelines that they all stick to.

I will repeat this because its important, the Brand Managers are the custodian of the brand, all branding materials MUST go through them or better still be created by them to maintain consistency, relevance (the messages are better read in the market, better understood and actioned upon) and to reduce costs.

Good luck

"in the process of developing a branding strategy for the corporation."

In your case you are also having to wrestle with existing brands probably each in varying degrees of success and life cycles.

One risk of viewing brand strategy development at this stage is viewing it too much as a Top Down process, or conversely, too much of a Bottom Up evaluation.

Is "what''s best for the corporation" more important than the cash flow or profitability of an existing brand and what''s good for that brand?" Is possibly diluting a brand''s identity worth the corporate identity gain? Is the company being packaged for a larger strategy that may dictate many of these issues and strategies?

Clearly a brand''s personality develops to suit and serve it''s specific markets and tampering may not be worth the risk - depending on where each is in it''s life cycle, or it''s cash flow or asset value.

The corporate brand surely should encompass the brands it purveys, or will purvey. The answers to these issues will almost surely become corporate strategy discussions at some point as well. So I wonder if the corporate charter for you to build a brand strategy has guidelines or goals that would steer you.

"... if you develop brand values, personality, attributes & a brand promise for the "family" brand, should you allow some flexibility for the individual product businesses to express their individual product brand..."

My vote is "Yes", unless the brands are to become generic players.

Excellent challenge! Good luck - I''d love to hear how you decide to proceed.

You may want ot try this site:

https://www.brandfidelity.com/index.html

It is exclusive to branding and offers many tools.

Good Luck!