[MUSIC] So you can think about this, think about it two by two. I've brought up lots of two by twos but that's the way business schools and in consulting, we think about the world. Think about this two by two. On the one axis you have a house of brands, which lots of different brands, and on the other side you have a branded house or a mono-brand. And then think about how theses brands have to be driven from an organizational prospective. Do you have a monoculture inside the organization that can drive these? Or do you have to have multiple cultures in the organization that drives these different brands? So let me give you a couple of extreme examples, one would be Reckitt Benckiser. Lots of different brands, but they have the same overarching promise to their customers, it's all about delighting customers through constant innovation. Small improvements in packaging and quality and so fourth. They had to drive a culture of innovation. And they invested heavily in that through the whole HR function. The way the recruited, their systems, their processes, their KPI's, they've created really this Marmite culture almost, if you will. You either love it or you hate it. That brand suites all of their products. On the other extreme, you have a maybe Unilever where there's a mix. On the ice cream side, some of their brands have a monoculture, because the euphoric fund unites Magnum, Cornettos, Solero, Cartor, and others. But some stand separate, like Ben and Jerry's. But within Unilever's larger portfolio, as I will be discussing with Keith Weed in that interview, you have a brand like Dove, which is about natural beauty. And then you have a brand like Axe or Lynx, which is about confidence for young men. You can't have the same teams pushing those different brands. You have actually different people who kind of feel at home in those brands, you have your own local subcultures. And you have to, you have to protect them. And maybe on that extreme with two different cultures i'll end up with a business to business example which is Xiameter. Xiameter provides silicon to businesses and they really have two offerings. One is that very customized silicon with with constant innovation where they're close to their customers, providing solutions where they are experts, but those very same customers. So again, it's the same customer purchasing different brands from the same company, the same way I purchase different ice creams from Unilever. Those same large customers who wanted the customized services, the solutions, also wanted the standard silicone at low prices. So what Dow Corning did is basically provide you with a different solution under Xiameter. It was an Internet only business. Where you got standardized products, you got standardized prices, standardized quantities. You could get it in a tank load, truckload, or palette load. You could only get it in one of six major currencies. There was very little customer service, and they basically took their excess production capacity so they could produce low cost silicon at a price that was competitive. Now you might ask, well, could I get the same silicon under both brands? The answer is yes. And as a matter of fact, one of the customers did ask this, and the CEO of Xiameter said in a very nice way. He said. Think about the gasoline you get for your car, how much is it. And the customer gave him the cost, and says, well you know what? I can give you that same gasoline at a 20% lower price, you just have to take it as a tank load. What they did in essence is they took their entire service offering, they unbundled it and offered kind of the lowest level of service, which the low-cost providers also offered, in order to compete at that end, and they offered the full-service under the Dow Corning brand. So they managed to have clear separation between the brands, they clearly had a different brand name. A different offering, a different promise to the customers, and the customers ultimately accepted that offering. So think about mapping your brands inside the organization. Think about what role do they play strategically. Are they serving different customers, the same customer? What is the nature of the promise? What is the role they play for you. Are they a profit driver, are they a cash-cow, do they push you're own innovation. Think about the strategic role for you, the role for the customer. Think about the brand architecture you want to overlay on that promise. And create that clarity within the organization so that you can adapt all your systems and processes. For some of those brands, you might actually have to have different teams with a different local culture. This is not a functional culture like you might have in IT or marketing, but this is really a brand culture. You might have to have different KPIs. Really, everything changes when you think about your brands as not just a promise to the customer but as a way of delivering that promise through the organization. [MUSIC]