An Overview of Brand Portfolio Management

By Stefano Curti

Introduction

Stefano Curti is the CEO of a venture capital and innovation incubator based in San Francisco. His previous experience includes serving as global president of skincare for Johnson & Johnson (J&J). In June 2014, Stefano Curti visited New York University's Stern School to deliver a keynote address regarding his approach to brand portfolio management.

Brand portfolio management is a discipline implemented by businesses that operate under different names and brands, and involves lumping all of a business's brands together to facilitate easier management.

Brand Portfolios

Brand portfolios offer several advantages. Most notably, companies that try to operate brands individually often find inefficiency and confusion disrupting their operations. By collecting all the brands, executives can see the big picture and determine how each brand contributes to strategy.

Bringing brands together also helps ailing brands. If left on their own, newer, weaker brands may run out of resources.

Conclusion

Grouping brands in a brand portfolio gives every brand access to all of the company's resources; established brands can carry more weight until newer brands become profitable.

To build a brand portfolio, companies should organize the brands according to how the business envisions each brand's future in its market. From there, the portfolio can be structured according to the priorities of each brand.