How can I use a branding consultancy to develop a brand architecture and align executive stakeholders?

A branding consultancy can help you do two things at once:

1. Define the right brand architecture — how your master brand, sub-brands, products, services, and entities relate.
2. Build executive alignment — get leaders to agree on the strategy, tradeoffs, and operating model.

Here’s a practical way to use a consultancy effectively.

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1) Start with the business problem, not the logo

Be clear on what you need help solving, for example:

• You’ve acquired businesses and need to decide whether to keep, merge, or retire brands
• Your portfolio has become confusing to customers or employees
• Different executive teams are protecting their own brands
• You’re launching new products and need a naming/brand system
• You need a scalable structure for future growth

A good consultancy should translate these issues into a brand architecture decision framework.

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2) Ask the consultancy to run a structured brand architecture assessment

Typically, they should evaluate:

• Current portfolio inventory: all brands, products, services, entities, and sub-brands
• Market/customer perception: what audiences understand, trust, and prefer
• Internal business realities: revenue streams, channels, geographies, legal entities, M&A history
• Competitive landscape: how peers structure their brands
• Brand equity and overlap: which names carry value and which create confusion

Deliverable you want:

• A current-state map of the portfolio
• A diagnosis of where the architecture is helping or hurting the business

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3) Use them to define architecture principles before discussing options

Executives align better when they agree on decision rules first.

Examples of architecture principles:

• “Use the master brand where trust and scale matter.”
• “Keep acquired brands only if they have strong market equity.”
• “Prefer a single global naming system unless local regulatory needs require exceptions.”
• “Sub-brands should clarify offer differentiation, not create separate identities unless strategically necessary.”

This helps prevent the conversation from turning into opinion-based brand debates.

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4) Have the consultancy create 2–4 clear architecture options

A useful consultancy process is to present a few realistic models, such as:

• Branded house: one master brand with endorsed offerings
• House of brands: separate brands for different products/markets
• Hybrid architecture: master brand plus selective standalone brands
• Transition model: short-term coexistence with a migration path

Each option should be assessed against agreed criteria like:

• Customer clarity
• Cross-sell potential
• Cost and complexity
• Brand equity preservation
• Global scalability
• Speed of implementation
• Legal and regulatory feasibility

Ask for a comparison table, not just a recommendation.

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5) Make stakeholder alignment a formal workstream

This is often where consultancies add the most value.

They can help by:

• Interviewing executives individually to surface concerns
• Identifying hidden conflicts between business units
• Reframing debates around enterprise goals
• Running decision workshops with structured facilitation
• Documenting decisions and tradeoffs visibly

A strong consultancy will treat alignment as a change-management process, not a presentation.

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6) Use executive interviews to uncover the real issues

Before a big workshop, the consultancy should interview key leaders such as:

• CEO
• CFO
• CMO/brand leader
• Heads of business units
• Sales/product leaders
• Legal/compliance if naming and entity issues matter

The goal is to identify:

• Who sees brand as a growth lever
• Who fears losing autonomy
• Who wants to protect legacy equity
• Who is concerned about cost or disruption

This lets the consultancy design a workshop that addresses the real objections early.

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7) Run a decision workshop with clear outputs

A good executive workshop should produce specific decisions, such as:

• Which architecture model to adopt
• Which brands stay, merge, or retire
• Which brands are master, endorsed, or sub-brands
• What naming logic to use for future launches
• What the migration sequence should be

The consultancy should facilitate discussion, but the leadership team must make the decisions.

Helpful workshop practices:

• Pre-read materials
• Agreed criteria
• Decision matrix
• Parking lot for unresolved issues
• Visible capture of action items and owners

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8) Ask for a migration roadmap, not just a strategy

Brand architecture only works if it can be implemented.

The consultancy should deliver:

• Brand transition roadmap
• Naming guidelines
• Identity system implications
• Website/domain strategy
• Messaging hierarchy
• Governance model for future brand decisions
• Prioritized rollout plan by market/product/customer impact

You want a realistic sequence, usually starting with high-value, low-risk moves.

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9) Establish governance so alignment lasts

Without governance, architecture breaks down quickly.

The consultancy can help define:

• Who owns brand decisions centrally
• What requires executive approval
• Naming and launch review process
• Brand standards and exceptions process
• Brand portfolio review cadence

This prevents future drift and re-litigation of the same debates.

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10) What to look for in the consultancy

Choose a partner that has:

• Experience with brand portfolio architecture
• Strong facilitation and stakeholder alignment skills
• Evidence of M&A, multi-brand, or enterprise brand work
• Ability to connect brand strategy to business strategy
• Practical implementation support, not just conceptual decks

Good questions to ask:

• How do you diagnose when a house of brands vs branded house is appropriate?
• How do you handle executive disagreement?
• What does your migration planning process look like?
• How do you balance equity preservation with simplification?
• Can you support governance after the strategy is approved?

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A simple engagement model

A typical consultancy engagement might look like:

1. Discovery and audit
2. Executive interviews
3. Architecture principles workshop
4. Portfolio options development
5. Leadership alignment workshop
6. Recommendation and roadmap
7. Governance and implementation support

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Best practices for your side

To get the most value:

• Sponsor the work from the top
• Be explicit about decision authority
• Share business context and constraints early
• Don’t ask the consultancy to “make everyone happy”
• Focus on enterprise outcomes, not unit-level preferences

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If you want, I can also give you:

1. a sample consultancy RFP outline,
2. a brand architecture workshop agenda, or
3. a stakeholder interview guide.