The Enterprise Sessions is a new content series led by Prof. Michele Barbour Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor: Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Bristol.
The series has been created to inspire entrepreneurs and help them to realise impact from their ideas. Michele interviews founders, researchers and academics from different disciplines and career stages who’ve been part of the University’s Enterprise ecosystem. Each episode is a treasure trove of information covering a range of topics from funding, licensing and IP, consultancy, contract research and business incubation.
Guests include Konstantina Psoma, Professor Wuge Briscoe, Professor Roberta Guerrina and Dr Tom Carter.
Bristol now tops the list of UK universities for the return on investment achieved by spinouts and is ranked in the top 3 for equity investment.
Prof. Michele Barbour said: “The University of Bristol has an impressive track record of enterprise and innovation and we’re keen to share that knowledge within our community as well as with a wider audience. The Enterprise Sessions is a new content series that brings to life the personal stories of spinout Founders and how our enterprise ecosystem has them.
Firehaus took our idea and created a branded content series, introducing the broadcast-style interview approach, as well as the name and look and feel. The approach has allowed me to develop rich conversations with our interviewees and showcase their experience of our ecosystem which will be of huge benefit for anyone involved in research, innovation and enterprise.”
Nick Barthram, Strategy Partner at Firehaus said: “Firehaus has worked with a range of organisations in the Research, Innovation and Enterprise space, including UKRI, Made Smarter Innovation and The University of Bristol. Consequently, we’ve developed a clear understanding and methodology to ignite opportunities at the intersection of academia and industry”.
Strategy, Concept and Art Direction: Firehaus
Film Production: JonesMillbank
We’re delighted to announce that we’re wrapping up the first quarter of 2022 with a duo of new business wins. We’ll be working with Vivo Life on brand positioning and will aid the University of Bristol in the development of their commercial Quantum offering.
Vivo Life makes 100% plant-based health and fitness supplements. They have an enviable range of top-quality products which are not only great for people using them, but for the environment and world around them. Its growth has been fuelled by growing awareness and desire for plant-based, cruelty-free nutrition, and is underpinned by a strong sense of purpose as a business-for-good.
With a loyal following in the UK, US and Germany in particular, the business is looking to remain top-of-mind in an increasingly competitive environment, expand awareness to wider audiences within those core markets, as well as access new international markets.
Based in Somerset, Vivo Life is the latest purpose-driven organisation based in the region to work with us as they scale for growth.
We’ve been appointed to take the Vivo Life team through its Brand Ignition framework, beginning with defining a new Brand Position. We’ll also use our proprietary Spark survey with employees to understand how the brand currently shapes their internal purpose, culture and environment to set the business up for growth.
Salvatore Notaro, co-founder and Managing Director at Vivo Life comments, “With big change in the competitor landscape since our launch seven years ago along with rising marketing costs, we recognised that we need a new approach to be able to achieve sustainable growth. So, I’m delighted to be working with Firehaus and their Brand Ignition framework to get us to that next stage.”
We’ll also be working with the University of Bristol to develop its commercial quantum offering and brand positioning. The focus will be on Bristol bringing quantum technology out of the lab and into the world to help tackle the challenges of the future.
Nick Barthram, Founder and Strategy Partner adds, “We’ve been working behind-the-scenes with the Bristol quantum community for a year now and it still remains exhilarating to be part of something which could so fundamentally change the world we live in.”
In the mid 90s there was a buzz in the air. A new technology was on the horizon and the business world was starting to get their head around the opportunities associated with it. The internet was just around the corner and it was going to change everything.
You can bet your bottom dollar that your average successful 50-something business(wo)man rode the dot-com wave – in some form or another – all the way into the doorway of their second home in Padstow.
As Peter Thiel (PayPal) recounts, “The dot-com bubble was a goldrush: there was money everywhere, and no shortage of it, and no shortage of people to chase it … Appending .com to your name could double your value overnight” (Zero to One). The titans of business today were forged in the dot-com furnace – fueled by limitless information.
The dot-com wave irreversibly changed everyone’s lives. For the better? That’s not what this blog is about. The important point here is that today, 20 years after the large-scale adoption of the internet, we spend a sizable portion of our days thinking about the internet. In the eight hours a day we spend at work, we spend at least two of those hours thinking about the internet.
An important clarification: what I mean by “thinking about the internet” isn’t the time we spend navigating the internet, but the time that we spend making decisions in which the internet is a player. “Thinking” in this should could be more accurately thought of as consideration.
In the mid 90s, the internet was a fringe concept: open to debate and not universally accepted as a norm. At this point, the innovators and early adopters were turning the wheel and setting sail towards new ways of conducting their business which included the internet. The laggards and late majority, had their fingers in their ears and took the “I don’t think the internet’s going to change our business too much” stance (Context if you don’t understand these groups).
In the end, it was those who had full faith in this new way of thinking (pre-2000 in the graph above), changing their internal decision making to adopt an unproven and futuristic way of thinking who shaped the world we live in today. Those who were resistant, were forced to join the future at some point – and most likely don’t have that second home in Padstow today.
It will be no surprise — especially given the nature of our work at Future Shift — that I will pull this internet analogy into the world of 2022: a world just starting to adopt sustainable thinking into business. If you add 20 years to each of the values in the X axis in the graph above, you are seeing a picture of what the future trends will look like for sustainability being adopted as a core element of a business day-to-day.
For businesses and the people that work in them, thinking about sustainability today is just like what thinking about the internet was like 20 years ago. One had to think about a complicated, risky, futuristic system that we’re all moving towards, and no one had any idea of the social consequences. I can completely understand why people are opposed to making complicated, systemic changes — there’s definitely a lot less brain-ache involved with keeping your fingers in your ears (but I guess that’s why only 2.5% of the population are innovators). It is the job of this 2.5%, who quite like the risk and brain-ache to make thinking about sustainability accessible to everyone – just like Microsoft, Google and Apple did in the 00s. This is the business challenge of our working lives (unless you are in your second home in Padstow) and one that Future Shift is embarking on now.
The Microsoft’s, Google’s, Fa***ook’s and Apple’s of the world succeeded because they took the unbearably complicated concept that was the internet and made it so simple your nan could use it. This is the nature of the sustainable business arms race of the next 20 years. The internet’s market size is about $2 trillion. If you’ve heard Mark Carney speak on sustainability in the financial space, you’ll know that $2 trillion are baby numbers compared with what must be circulated to combat the climate crisis.
So, how is sustainability going to change your life? If you are a director or working in the innovation space, then everything you’ve already read is for you and how sustainability will penetrate your every business thought over the next 20 years.
For everyone else, think about your day-to-day job — and I want you to be honest here — and answer the question: “do I think about sustainability in my every-day decisions?” (sustainability here means how this decision will compromise the ability of people to live forever). If the graph above is anything to go by, only 3/10 of you can answer yes to this, and that’s pretty accurate in my experience of working with developing sustainable thinking in businesses.
Here are just some examples of how sustainability will be involved in your day-to-day, for some of the most common roles in a business:
Procurement – “keeping our supply chain in line with carbon limits/taxes is the bane of my life!”
Operations – “what is the climate-related disaster risk for our factories in Bangladesh? This is the second factory closed down due to flooding this week!”
Recruitment – “no innovative or progressive graduates are looking to work for my business”
Sales – “no-one wants to buy our individually plastic-wrapped dishwasher tablets any more”
R&D – any future facing role will have to be resilient to climate risks. This is perhaps the only role within a business, where thinking about our longevity as a species is close to enough, but people in R&D are kind of cheating because it’s their job to think about the future.
HR – “Climate migrants have created new challenges for language and ethnic diversity in our workplace”
In reality, a lot of these problems are on people’s minds right now and will become every-day consideration in the all too near future. When we get to a sizable chunk of the world thinking about these ideas before they are risks, that is when we transition into a sustainable society and start to address the fundamental sustainable issues we face today.
“Invest in emotional intelligence and emotional resilience because for the first time in history people will have to reinvent themselves multiple times throughout their life”
Yuval Noah Harari on what children should be taught today.
Our mission in the world is to redesign sustainability for business. Our mission for our clients is to change everyone’s job description to include sustainability principles, thus nudging people to start thinking about sustainability and pulling sustainability into the equation when making day-to-day company decisions, however seemingly futile.
If we change enough people’s job descriptions, we begin to redesign what sustainability means to business – not some limitation or harsh boundary in which a business can operate, but an ideological shift within a business’ inner workings that can be induced by nothing more than the ability to see the world a little clearer.
See more images here
Top floor, corner of St Nicholas St and Clare St above Four Wise Monkeys – BS1 1YH
Minimum 6 month contract
Hey! What? and Duchess Media are looking for freelancers or small start ups to come share our recently expanded creative office space with us. We have 4 more desks available in our bright and spacious second room that includes its own kitchenette and a shared meeting room space.
We are a fun, creative and social group and are looking for people who will fit into the environment we have created.
Rent includes:
• Desk
• Internet
• Electricity
• Showers
• Cleaning
You will need to provide your own chair.
Anyone interested in coming to have a look please get in contact here or call Hamish on 07866 915 863.
We have a jam-packed events agenda in July so we thought we’d summarise the education and inspiration you can enjoy.
All Bristol Creative Industries-run events are free for BCI members. If you’re not a member, sign up from only £4.50 a month.
1 July, 8.30am. Free for BCI members only.
Wake Up Call is our online event exclusively for BCI members that’s delivered by BCI members. It features a 30 minute practical presentation and Q&A every other Friday at 8.30am.
First up in July is copywriting expert Rin Hamburgh from Rin Hamburgh & Co.
On 1 July at 8.30am, Rin will look at the different types of blog post you might use to engage your audience at each stage of their buyer journey and guide them one step closer to doing business with you.
5 July, 12.30pm. Free for members, £25 for non-members.
Women over 50 are the fastest growing demographic in the workforce, and a significant percentage are likely to be in senior/leadership roles, plus on the front line of client relationships. 25% of menopausal woman say it can have a ‘debilitating’ effect on their ability to do their job, but unfortunately due to lack of awareness and societal shame, this is issue is not acknowledged enough in the workplace.
What can you do if you manage a team that includes women who could be heading towards menopause if you know nothing about it, and wouldn’t have much of a clue how to tackle a conversation about it?
In this online session, executive coach Fi Craig and Kinneir Dufort’s Tamsin Chambers discuss why this menopause is such a relevant topic for the workplace, why is it not spoken about enough, and what business leaders can do to address it.
14 July, 12.30pm. Free for BCI members, £25 for non-members.
In this online workshop, recruitment Liz Gadd will cover the affects of the pandemic, Brexit, the ‘Great Resignation’ of 2021, the gig economy and how they’ve have contributed to businesses’ current recruitment challenges.
She will suggest solutions and ideas on how you can better recruit including perfecting your recruitment process, advertising the roles, using job boards, working with recruiters, and much more.
15 July, 8.30am. Free for BCI members only.
This online session will demonstrate how you can drive lead quality through the roof and bid more efficiently using value-based bidding.
Harriet Barter, from paid media agency Launch, will guide you through what value-based bidding is, how it works and how to start using it right away, so you can target the conversions that mean the most to your business.
Running your own event? Submit details here for listing on the website.
All Bristol Creative Industries-run events are free for BCI members. If you’re not a member, sign up from only £4.50 a month.
At AUK we not only make a meaningful difference through our work, but we have a strong focus on creating positive impacts on the health and wellbeing of our team. Our strong values surrounding health and wellbeing mean we get the best out of our day, both mentally and physically. Creating a working environment that supports good nutrition is key to AUK’s approach as it’s the backbone to how we function, especially as a creative agency. We need to get those creative juices flowing!
In 2021 we joined forces with Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant Laura Clark to become our own AUK nutrition and diet advisor, guiding us on our learning and development. Laura has already helped the team take a look at the connection between mental health and nutrition, and this year we have a strong focus on maintaining our energy levels.
“How we choose to fuel our working day has the potential to have a profound impact on our productivity, energy levels and mental resilience. However, we seem to be fond of creating a structure in which we expect our brains to do it all simultaneously. Food should be tasted, savoured and enjoyed, if only for a few brief moments away from the keyboard. We tend to succeed more with all tasks that we decide to devote our attention to. Appetite regulation and energy management are no different.” Laura Clark, Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant
Being an agency for all means we love to give back, so we wanted to share our ways of working to our AUK friends to give them a deeper understanding of our values surrounding nutrition and our approach to the work we create. Check out their thoughts:
“We spend a lot of our lives at work, so ensuring that we are fuelling ourselves with the best possible things to optimise energy feels really important to me, now more than ever after attending Laura’s talk. It also made me realise that it’s not just all about me. It’s about the impact I have on others too. If I’m running low on energy or having a slump, others will feel that impact too.” Kate Gray, Cookpad
“Good nutrition fuels our minds and bodies – our two biggest tools when it comes to doing impactful creative work. Feed your body, nourish your brain. It was great to see Laura take a realistic look at nutrition and wellness. She explained how to balance a diet that is realistic and sustainable for working professionals.” Alyssa Jaffer, Deliveroo
“Creating a flexible culture where breaks to eat at a time that is right for individuals, away from the desk and in a mindful way, is encouraged will foster empowerment to personalise wellbeing through food, which ultimately will benefit all.” Amanda Butterworth, Trust My Care
“Managing energy levels is key to productivity across a team, and nutrition plays such a huge role in this and affects everyone regardless of their exercise habits or sporting interests.” Simon Rollings, The Canned Wine Co.
“We all deserve the opportunity to fuel our brilliance. With small tweaks and an ethos that supports the foundational aspects of employee wellbeing, we can really set ourselves up for success,” says Laura Clark, Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant.
Launched to mark the programme’s 10-year anniversary and reinforce the agency’s commitment to Bristol as its UK home, the Noble Deeds initiative will see one local charity secure £12,000 worth of digital performance marketing support.
Noble Performs is inviting Bristol-based charities to attend the launch event on the 6th July, when entries will open, with the winner announced in August and work beginning in September.
Started originally by Noble Performs Nevada Headquarters, the Noble Deeds programme has upskilled dozens of charities & not for profits during the past decade, and scaled as Noble’s US business has grown, now donating in excess of $200,000 a year of services to worthy causes.
Noble’s UK managing director, Kate Sikora, explains;
“Ever since we first established our Bristol base in 2018 we’ve wanted to bring our Noble Deeds programme to the city. With charities and not-for-profits struggling more than ever to secure vital donations due to the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis it felt like the right time to be trying to help charities look at how their digital marketing efforts can help crucial fundraising efforts
“One of the reasons we chose the city as our UK home is it really resonates with our ‘Be Better Every day’ philosophy. Bristol is such a melting pot of businesses and not-for-profits of all shapes and sizes but there’s a real sense of genuine community and shared responsibility around making the city a better place to live and work for everyone.”
Helping clients such as Adobe, Rolls Royce, Air Asia and Yosemite with their international digital presence, Noble’s ambition is to replicate the scale of its Nevada Noble Deeds programme in Bristol as its UK footprint grows.
To enter registered charities or not-for-profits must be Bristol-based and complete a simple application form, which will be available on the Noble Performs website on July 6th, 2022.
The Bristol-based charity that wins a place on the programme will secure a package of digital marketing support and skills training tailored to suit its specific needs, however this could include; SEO, PPC, Analytics and Paid Social.
Charities who wish to register their interest in the Noble Deeds Programme and attend the launch event at the Bristol Observatory on Wednesday 6th July (6-8 p.m.) should email [email protected] to receive an invitation and secure their place.
To find out more about Noble Performs go to https://nobleperforms.co.uk/
First up ADLIB. Our very own Steve Kay has been promoted to MD of ADLIB 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
12 months ago, we set out to achieve a lot in preparation for this move. The result of which has seen us deliver our best ever financial year, the development of the ADLIB x enable group proposition, organically growing a group headcount of 55 talented and lovely people, all which comes without any need to scale and sell and best of all we’ve built an infinite business model that opens career opportunities without ceilings and a stakeholder profit model for all to enjoy.
Steve’s been with ADLIB for 9 years and instrumental to our growth and success from the day he joined. Alongside Steve is an incredible management team that have stepped up to support him in realising our future ambitions.
Next up is enable. It’s taken time to pull together the perfect leadership team that balances energy, opportunity and structure, but we now have it, and it’s been well worth the wait.
Tim Macmillan, enable’s Founder, brings his unstoppable energy and the ability to create opportunity, Oliver Howson has been promoted to be our new MD. Ollie flips seamlessly between the vision and driving the team’s success, whilst Shannon Matthews rejoins the business to bring the structure that underpins everything. enable is bursting with energy and opportunity, the team is growing fast, B Corp is underway, we’re excited for how the next 12 months will unfold.
As for Nick, he’s here to help our new MDs and leaders, to be the best the business has ever had (his words).
Viva ADLIB & enable.
Bristol Creative Industries board member Heather Wright joined a fascinating event discussing the future of south west business. Dan Martin summarises the conversation.
Heather Wright spent 22 years at Bristol Creative Industries member Aardman Animations and now runs Springboard Creative. She joined the Bristol Creative Industries board in January 2021.
Heather was part of a panel of founders and experts at ‘The future shape of south west business’, an event run by Insider Media. You can replay a live stream of the full event here.
Also on the panel was:
Event host Christian Annesley started by asking the panellists what most excites them about the south west economy. Dominic Mills, who has just raised almost £1m via crowdfunding for the Yuup experiences marketplace said:
“The thing that excites me most about Bristol and the south west is the sheer amount of activity that’s going on. We’ve just completed a fundraise and getting into that ecosystem again felt more vibrant. When you look at the stats around how much has been raised in the south west, it’s hugely exciting and, for me, very indicative of all of the cool things that are happening in the region, but also the appetite to support them.”
Recent figures back up his comment about the appetite for supporting businesses. Data from the British Business Bank showed that the south west saw the UK’s biggest increase in equity investment among SMEs last year. Finance deals in the region rose 49% in 2021, more than in any other part of the UK. The value of investments increased by more than 350%, reaching £821m.
Speaking on behalf of the creative industries, Heather Wright said the sector “is absolutely thriving right now”. She added:
“The big national figures are that the creative industries contribute like £115bn to the national economy and in the south west, it contributes around £2bn to the region economy.
“There’s a huge army of largely small and micro businesses driving it. 72% of Bristol Creative Industries members are businesses with 0 to 4 employees and only 6% have 250 workers.
“Nationally we’re recognising the role of the creative industries beyond traditional art, marketing and advertising to now being multidisciplinarity. VR is being used in the medical industry, 3d modelling and digital twinning is being used for city planning and engineering and the connections between creativity, technology, and other sectors are becoming completely embedded.
“The creative industries are also the tool by which we can influence behaviour change in society. If you want to convince people about health, net zero or sustainability and communicate why it’s important, it’s the creative industries that are going to help you do it. The importance of the creative industries to society and the economy are becoming even more pronounced.”
All the panellists agreed the battle for talent is a big issue for south west businesses.
Dominic Mills has spent 20 years working in tech. He said while there has been lots of changes during that time, the one consistent that has never gone away is the demand for tech talent. He added:
“Over the last five or so years, we’ve seen the exodus of talent from London to the West Country. In my agency days, we went from being a agency with only a Bristol office to also having a London base. That facilitated people being able to leave London and relocate to Bristol because they were at the point in their lives where that made sense in terms of lifestyle but they didn’t need to leave the company to do it.
“During the pandemic we saw that people could work from anywhere and many began to question how they wanted to live their lives. I think a lot of the rules around where you need to be to do things have changed and therefore from a talent acquisition point of view, it presents a big opportunity for businesses in the south west.”
Responding to a question about whether the reputation of the south west being a nice place to live is a “game changing opportunity” for the region when it comes to attracting talent, Tim Atkins said we still face challenges from the likes of Manchester for encouraging young tech talent.
“The south west has got work to do because we are competing against places which from a diversity point of view are stronger. We’ve got to step up our game to work together to promote ourselves to young people.
“If we really want to attract the brightest minds in the next generation, we’ve got to think about what the south west looks like. For example, Cheltenham has a brilliant offer in digital, tech and cyber but for a 22-year-old, is moving to Cheltenham going to be their first move? We are great at attracting people with young families but I think there’s a gap for attracting others.”
Heather Wright said attracting more diverse employees into the creative industries is a recognised problem.
“We’ve been very white and middle class for a long time. There are organisations like Bristol Creative Industries member Babbasa that’s doing amazing work getting apprenticeships up and running for people from diverse backgrounds and BeOnBoard that’s encouraging younger people as board members.
“It’s about looking at what those younger employees are looking for. They have a different value set to us who are older. They are looking for personal development and flexibility. They’re looking for hybrid working and their whole life isn’t about work. It’s about balance and fulfiling their purpose in life.”
In Cornwall, Mike Atkins said the region is a great place to live but one of the key factors impacting the ability to attract and retain talent is the availability of somewhere to live. “We’ve got a very distorted housing market because holiday lets are having a huge impact on the availability of housing,” he said.
Dominic Mills agreed on the housing point but added that it’s “so important that we celebrate everything we have in the south west.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months in other regions as part of preparing for our platform expansion and I’ve found that a lot of civic and leaders in other regions look to Bristol and the south west as a pathfinder. They aspire to be like us.
“We absolutely should do more and strike to be better and to achieve more as a region, but I also think we should celebrate everything that we have.
“One of my biggest learnings from the last 18 months is the importance of engaging with all communities in Bristol because the talent that is already here in our city is phenomenal. I think we often overlook local communities. We need to find different ways of accessing it. Babbasa is a brilliant example of an organisation that can help us access talent that very often gets overlooked right here on our doorstep.”
Read top tips for how to attract Generation Z talent to your business.
Universities also have a role to play in attracting new talent to the south west. Dr Joanna Jenkinson from the GW4 Alliance, which brings together the universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter, said:
“The role and position of universities has fundamentally shifted in that they all take their civic mission really seriously. They are very much embedded in their communities and work with local authorities.
“We have apprenticeship programmes that are jointly run with small businesses. Apprenticeship programmes are really important for the technical community within our universities. We support the technicians in our universities to raise their profile. They are the lifeblood of a lot of the work that happens in universities.
“Another opportunity for universities to do things a differently is entrepreneurship programmes. If you look at Bristol University’s programme, 45% of the start-up founders are women and 24% are from a black, Asian or ethnic minority background. If you put a supportive environment around people, then you can do things differently.”
Heather Wright said colleges in Bristol are playing a key role in future creative industries talent.
“One of the reasons why Bristol is successful in the creative industries is because we have a good system of colleges and universities doing film courses etc. There are fantastic courses at both the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England. There’s also education providers like Boomsatsuma.
“I think there is still an issue with people coming out of college being work ready. As employers we can do more to build links and partnerships with colleges and universities. When I worked at Aardman Animations, if we had a big feature film or TV series we needed to crew up for and the crew didn’t exist, we would set up a special training course so people could apply for it. I think that organisations and industries that have the ability to give that finessing from when people leave university to being fully professional and fully employable in an income earning role is something that we should all take responsibility for.”
Read our in-depth guide to creative industries-related further and higher education in Bristol and Bath.
Facebook rebrand? Say what?
Facebook, one of the most used products in history has announced its rebrand to Meta and there is a huge splash on social media with online users sharing the news and having conflicting opinions. Perhaps there is a slight confusion of what is actually happening.
Facebook, the social media platform isn’t getting a rebrand as such, however, the company that owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, is.
Meaning Meta will be the Parent Brand for the social media apps, including Facebook, and any new products and services that may be completely irrelevant to social media.
The misconception
Facebook is indeed an iconic media brand however they claim that they want to be and do more than that. Drifting away from the misconception of Facebook being the social media platform only.
Having one of the social media apps being called the same name as the parent company creates confusion and lessens flexibility, meaning not being able to move forward and grow. It doesn’t encompass everything they do today and especially their future plans.
I think that there was just a lot of confusion and awkwardness about having the company brand be also the brand of one of the social media apps,” he said. “I think it’s helpful for people to have a relationship with a company that is different from the relationship with any specific one of the products, that can kind of supersede all of that. Mark Zuckerger
https://www.theverge.com/22749919/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-meta-company-rebrand
Meta solves the issue
Moving forward Meta wants the business to focus on two different segments. One for the social apps and one for future platforms. A new company brand to encompass everything they do and build.
Mark Zuckerberg states that the mission remains the same: bringing people together, still the company that designs technology around people. ‘Connection is evolving and so are we’.
Meta, derived from the Greek word beyond, symbolising that there is more to build.
A new brand system is applied
Creating a brand system that is able to hold under the different segments. The social media products such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, as well as any new products and future platforms.
Each product has a unique purpose and appeals to different audiences, based on culture, age, region, lifestyle, profession, et al. Therefore it is important that they are differentiated between them.
The image below illustrates some of the brands Meta currently holds and how they will probably be divided.
Brand architecture
Brand architecture is the way a company structures and presents its products to the target audience. It’s the relationship between brands within an organization and how they interact with one another.
Companies grow and target various audiences through different acquisitions and product lines, brand architecture is articulating a key structural system, helping each type of product to connect with the right audience and form perception.
It creates clarity by having a structure that achieves a robust system achieving flexibility and a system that can align and support any future plans; new lines of products, services.
There are a few strategies and methods applied to create brand architecture, each one serves a different purpose. See below.
Branded house (monolithic):
A single master brand, using one visual system. Sub-brands are differentiated by descriptors, not logos. Usually, they are easier to manage and consumers choose based on loyalty. However, it is harder to target a specific audience and their needs.
House of brands (pluralistic):
The house of brands is basically the opposite of the branded house. It detaches the master brand from any of its products. The parent company is irrelevant and ‘invisible’ to the individual products that it distributes, enabling them to even compete with each other. If one of the brands is under a crisis, the others would not be affected. With this method is easier to target desired audiences, yet it can be the most costly one.
Hybrid (endorsed):
This category allows products to be associated or disassociated (to any level) with the parent company. Usually to benefit from the visibility of the company’s parent. It can also be used in the reversed way; when a product should not be linked with another one or the company parent at all. It is the most flexible approach yet hard to comprehend and manage.