Morning! 

We’ve been writing about Sub / Endorsed Brands, and Brand Architecture, heavily for the last few years.

And this is showing no sign of slowing down—both the continued march of Sub Brands as an important Brand Strategy move in today’s maturing beer market, aaaaaand me writing about it. (Sorry.)

Today, I wanted to share a few interesting Sub Brand use case we’ve come across in our project work in the last 6 to 12 months. 

These are all interesting scenarios that you might find valuable as you think about your portfolio for the remainder of 2024. 

But first, a quick definition here, from The Beyond Beer Handbook:

What is a Sub Brand?

A Sub Brand is connected closely to your parent brand—think of it as a little extra spice given to separate each product from one another within your overall portfolio. A Sub Brand still carries the same values that intuitively link it to the parent brand, but targets a specific audience with further defined attributes and benefits that might not be offered by the parent brand alone. This allows you to build stronger bonds with your existing customers while expanding your overall footprint by dipping your toes into new categories and audiences.

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A few important nuances here:

1. In Brand Architecture terms, this strategy can manifest as a Sub Brand or an Endorsed Brand. The specific approach isn’t as important as is the long term bet that we’re seeing more breweries make: The future will be more centered around specific brands and brand families, more so than around a brewery’s parent brand.

2. When building a true Sub Brand, your parent brand is still the main purchasing driver.

So the things we’re discussing today can be positioned as Sub or Endorsed Brands. The main takeaway is that you’re building a brand within your brewery's broader portfolio.

(Above): Revisit our Sub Brand Summer series here.

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Sub Brand use case #1: Bridging into the fourth category 

Our Brand Architecture work began in earnest in 2019 when we helped a handful of breweries across the country launch hard seltzer brands. That work quickly gave way to breweries building RTD cocktail lines, spirit brands, coffee brands, Hop Waters, NA beer and all manner of other fourth category products. 

The biggest concern in these early engagements was what releasing this new non-beer product would say about your brewery. (i.e. will this confuse our fans?)

Building a Sub Brand to launch a fourth category product is a clean path to market because it puts just enough of a buffer between your parent brand and this new product brands so that you can continue to expand this new line (via Line Extensions, co-branding, scaling the Sub Brand Ladder, etc.) without harming your parent brand’s positioning and equity.

This creates a solid platform for future extensions should you decide to go that route.

(Above): Left Field Brewery has created a series of Sub / Endorsed Brands to bridge into the Fourth Category.

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Sub Brand use case #2: Building a premium product line 

A Sub Brand can be a great way to differentiate a specific beer, or line of beers from the rest of your portfolio. 

And depending on your strategy, a brand name and unique identity can help elevate the presentation and drive a higher price. 

This is a classic strategy in beer and CPG branding and you’ve probably done some variation of it before yourself. Common examples include barrel aged program (big stouts, foeder series, wild ales, etc.).

But the category, beer or beyond, isn't important to this point. Our main takeaway is that we're seeing an overall uptick in this sort of project work right now.

So think through whether there's an opportunity to create a premium line within your brewery's portfolio. 

(Above): Read more about Rhinegeist's premium barrel-aged line here.

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Sub Brand use case #3: Building a budget line 

On the other end of this spectrum, we’re seeing a lot of Sub Brand development around budget-ish lines. 

This is being driven almost entirely by the craft lager and light beer trend. These aren’t quite domestic, in terms of pricing, but seek to occupy that same space in people’s fridge. And I think the “budget” term here is relative.

These premium lagers are “budget” relative to the rest of your craft portfolio, but more premium than the mainline domestic industrial lager brands.

We’ve written a lot about this space over the last year. If you’re interested in this topic, hit these links to learn more: 

> The year of craft lager?

> On the perils of releasing a budget brand

Sub Brand use case #4: Creating a brand that can travel

The last several years have seen breweries pulling back from further afield markets and re-entrenching in their backyard. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still find growth across state lines.

And we’re working on a lot of projects right now that aim to do just this: Not take over the world via national expansion, but push into a market just down the road where you feel like you can win. 

The problem is that there is so much beer—great beer—everywhere, that the value prop for buying your brewery's beer in another market is challenging. 

This is a problem for all craft breweries looking to launch new markets, but becomes amplified the more closely tied you are to your town or state. 

A targeted Sub Brand, particularly a lifestyle play that eschews specific provenance is a great way to get around this. It allows you to drop into a market and build without your parent brand’s baggage.

Our recent work building the Cold Drinking Beer brand is a great example of this concept.

Virginia Beer Co. sells a lot of beer in their home state. But this name doesn't carry much weight in, say, South Carolina. It can actually work against you. 

The Virginia Beer Co. still wanted to expand their distribution footprint, so they created a light beer brand—Cold Drinking Beer—to lead the charge.

Read more about how we built the Cold Drinking Beer brand here.

Wrapping up

We (CODO) see Sub Brands and Brand Architecture moves as one of the most important things happening in beer right now. At least from our corner of the industry as a branding firm. 

Breweries across the country are finding, and winning, incremental growth by making these sorts of moves. 

And whether you go premium or budget, beer or beyond, you should think about how these strategies could help bolster your business in the coming years. 

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Drop me a line if you want to explore how your brewery could build a Sub Brand.