Umbrella Branding

Martin Lindstrom has a nice story about Brands and sub brands on Ad Age wite. Check it out here. Moral of his story is that if one is creating a brand family, it benefits the family if there is some link between the mother brand and the baby brands. He gives examples of the iXXXXX brand names adopted by Apple.

While this can be positive in most cases, there can be a downside to umbrella brandin. For instance, an ill advised product launch with a connected name can end up tainting all the other connected brands.