What Is Multibranding? (A Powerful Brand Strategy For Growth)

How To Use A Multibranding Strategy
(With Top Brand Examples)

[Video Breakdown] 

One-click subscribe for video updates

What Is A Multibranding Strategy?

Multibranding or flanker branding, as it’s also known as a strategy used by established brands.

When an established brand within a specific category introduces another brand into that same category, they use the multi branding strategy to do that.

Multibranding is often used by brands that want to appeal to different market segments or categories.

Why Use A Multi Brand Strategy?

Well, there are only a certain amount of customers that you can serve within that category because there will be segments of the market that won’t want what your brand has. So this strategy is all about. Increasing market share on appealing to more specific audiences.

A multibranding strategy can be hugely beneficial for your brand. With the right approach, you can increase market share by appealing to more specific audiences while still satisfying what some of those customers want with a different product or service from one of your other brands.

Multibrand marketing involves creating separate but related products so that they appeal to different target groups. Theoretically, a single company could own both Coca-Cola and Pespi. Though they sell the essentially the same product they appeal to different segments. 

This hypothetical parent company would have a significantly larger market share by having two competing brands in the market rather than one.

Multibranding Strategy Examples

So let’s look at some examples to solidify the understanding of what the multi branding strategy is all about. This will give you some insight as to how some of the biggest brands in the world employ this strategy.

Proctor And Gamble Multibranding Example

Procter and Gamble is a house of brands with many different brands. And one of their leading brands is tide laundry detergent.

Tide is a very, very successful brand and it has a massive slice of the pie in the laundry detergent category.

So why would Proctor and Gamble want to introduce another brand into that category?

Well, there is a segment of that audience that believes that the tide brand is too expensive. They wouldn’t buy the tide brand because it is a little bit out of their reach.

So Proctor and Gamble introduced another brand into that category called Cheer with less quality and a lower price and appealed to that segment of the audience that wanted a cheaper option in the market.

Overall, Tide initially lost some market share but the market share for Proctor and Gamble through the two brands ended up being much larger because of this multi-branding strategy.

Toyota Multibranding Example

Another example of the multi-branding strategy is from Toyota.

Toyota has a brand reputation in the market as a very reliable mid-range car, but they wanted to introduce a bit more luxury into the market.

So Toyota’s brand strategists decided that they shouldn’t do that under the Toyota brand because the associations were with that mid-range, reliability, not luxury.

So they introduced Lexus into the market. Overall Toyota was able to increase its market share and to be able to diversify and offer more. Luxury to a wider audience.

Want actionable brand strategy tips & techniques?

Advantages Of A Multibranding Strategy?

It’s all about increasing that market share and having a broader presence. By introducing a new brand to the market, the company is able to reach out to new audiences and customers.

The advantages of using a multibranding strategy are as follows:

Increased market share for a larger customer base;

Diversification in product offerings allowing for more targeted marketing campaigns;

More offerings of products, services or experiences

Disadvantages Of A Multibranding Strategy?

There are no guarantees to any brand strategy and brand cannibalization is a risk.

You can have the two brands competing on certain levels and really not pulling in the same direction.

The disadvantages of multibranding are:

Brand cannibalization and diluting your brand;

Risk that the two brands end up competing on certain levels and not pulling in the same direction.

Confusion among consumers about which products to choose or the relationship between the brands.

Over To You

Now the multi branding strategy really highlights the fact of how important it is to understand your audience and understand your market.

You might have an established brand within your marketplace, but chances are, you are overlooking a segment of your audience

They have unmet needs and those unmet needs represent opportunity one way or another, whether it’s your brand that goes out and meets them or another brand.

It’s important to understand brand architecture and how you can structure your brands to take advantage of those opportunities market opportunities.