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How to Maintain Brand Consistency Across Product Lines

With a diversity of products, how do you keep your brand name pure? It's all about who your brand resonates with and why.

Frances M. Robert/Newscom

How does Apple demand the attention of the world with press conferences and drive legions of fans to camp overnight for the latest gadget—even when each fan practically has the same gizmo in their pocket already?

Apple's brand has gained such prestige over the years that anything with the company's name—from MP3 players to operating systems—causes widespread intrigue.

"I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Apple guy," says Tom Dougherty, CEO of Stealing Share, a branding firm based in Greensboro, North Carolina, and New York City, whose clients include Time Warner Cable and Jiffy Lube. "I want what the iPhone says about me, not what the iPhone does."

Apple has built up its brand consistency over time with a series of products that reinforce the company's central identity—sleek elegant products that push the boundaries of innovation. And Apple wants you to feel sleek and elegant too: That's why you don't see the Apple logo on pay-as-you-go cell phones or shoddy cassette players.

"There's not one time you touch the Apple brand they don't let you know who you are when you use it," Dougherty says.

Apple's example of brand consistency is the peak of its industry, but experts say you can follow its example by following a few basic tactics.

Maintaining Brand Consistency Across Product Lines: Have the Right Message

Today's super-saturated media environment means you need a precise and finely tuned message that can hone in on the ideal consumers for your product.

"We live in such an over-communicated society that it just takes so long to penetrate and make an impact," says Derrick Daye, managing partner of The Blake Project, which is based in Rochester, New York, Los Angeles, and Frankfurt, Germany. It has worked with Philips and Darden Restaurants, the parent company of Red Lobster and Olive Garden. "If you keep changing that message, the message itself never has time to really take hold in the mind."

The mantra among professionals when it comes to crafting a message is: frequency, consistency, and relevance.

Start by creating a clear identity of what your brand stands for that you will apply across all your products, even if the products are vastly different. Dougherty says this should be done at the company's founding by drafting a brand charter that explains who your products are for—and, just as importantly, who they're not for. New companies often make the mistake of trying to please everyone, and end up pleasing no one.

"It's basically your Constitution and your Bill of Rights rolled into one," he says. "Anything other than what your brand charter states is unconstitutional. You can't do it."

Porsche is a good industry role model for maintaining consistency of targeting affluent drivers, says Brannon Cashion, president of Addison Whitney, a branding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, that works with Kellogg's and Marriott.

"When they introduced an SUV it was done in a very Porsche type of way," he says.

Putting a brand statement on paper helps you avoid spending time going after the wrong customers, Dougherty says.

"How can we afford the waste of talking to somebody about something that doesn't matter to them?" he says. "That's the power of brand consistency."

Dig Deeper: Developing Effective Mission and Vision Statements

Maintaining Brand Consistency Across Product Lines: Be Persistent in Finding Your Niche

Even if you're entering a flooded marketplace, you always have a chance to make your brand and company stand out. People used to think water was all the same; now stores carry half-a-dozen brands or more.

"Marketers struggle with differentiation because they give up too soon," Daye says. "They think that this can't be differentiated, it can't be unique."

Experts say the constantly shifting marketplace creates the need to be creative with your approach. The toothpaste market is one that professionals cite as a constantly changing product selection that requires vigilance on the part of brand managers. Additives like baking soda, breath freshener, or whitening strips are now taken for granted.

"It almost is now where a lot of the differentiating traits of toothpaste have become either cost of entry or commoditized," Cashion says. "At the time when they came out they were probably unique and differentiating."

Tim Donnelly is a freelance writer, managing editor of the blog Brokelyn.com, and former McClatchy newspapers reporter whose work has appeared in Billboard, The Atlantic, Thought Catalog, and The New York Post. He lives in Brooklyn. @TimDonnelly

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