Your Brand Realm

Brand realm is the sphere or “space” in which your brand exists. Don’t confuse brand realm, or “architecture” with your corporate structure.

It’s a system—like a family tree—that helps your prospects and customers navigate easily within your company and make the right choices.

Determining your brand realm is a systematic way of organizing the identity of the different products, messages, or elements of an organization so that people both within and outside of the business understand how its clients or customers are being served. Brand realm also provides a solid framework for a business to manage future opportunities so that the new ventures are strengthened by their association with the value and equity invested in current activities.

The advantage of having a solid brand realm is that it’s easier and less expensive to add to the equity of an existing, strong brand than launching a new effort.

Brand realm gives structure to—and communicates the relationships between—your company including its divisions, business units, joint ventures, as well as its products and services, all with the objective of adding value to the brand.

It is designed around the needs and interests of external audiences rather than internal ones.

Here are some common brand realms, or structures to consider...

There’s no right or wrong structure. The question is: How do you want your customers to see you?

Brand realm defines and orders the relationship between brands, the corporate entities and families of products and services that make up your offerings. Ultimately, the realm will define a system, the family tree, that helps customers and prospects navigate easily among your brands and make the right choices.

Knowing your brand realm up front will also help you make decisions about how and when to add brand extensions.

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