Lately at Dusted, we’ve seen the same challenge cropping up in brand strategy projects — portfolios tangled in layers of product and service names that add more noise than meaning.
So, I wanted to share a brief look at how we approach fixing that. Because, to me, the smartest brand architecture usually means doing less, not more. That means cutting clutter, clarifying relationships, and putting the real points of difference in the spotlight.
In this piece, I’ve shared a few examples of how we’ve helped simplify or retire unnecessary branding, so the masterbrand carries more power, and every part of the system works harder to build value, not confusion.
Brand architecture gets a bad rap. It’s often treated like a filing system. More labels, lockups, and layers.
But the smartest brand architecture frameworks do the opposite. They remove clutter, cut noise and let the few things that can truly differentiate a brand do the heavy lifting. Fewer branded elements. Stronger brand equity.
How things get out of hand.
It always starts simply. One brand. One clear promise. Then a second product needs a value proposition, so it gets a name. A third follows. A new service appears. An acquisition lands. Working titles stick. Sales decks invent new labels. Before long, the logo garden takes root. Every sub-branded product shouts louder to be heard. Next thing you know, brand management becomes reactive, driven by internal convenience, not by how customers buy or navigate.
The result isn’t clarity. It’s cost. More campaigns to run. More stories to tell. Less recognition. More confusion. That’s when it’s time to press pause.
What brand architecture is for.
Brand architecture clarifies how everything relates, so people don’t have to work hard to understand you. It removes complexity so customers can find what they need quickly. Most importantly, it sets the shared benefits and values between the masterbrand, and how these halo across sub-brands and products, and in return ensures the whole portfolio ladders up to a single masterbrand promise. Done well, it concentrates equity, aligns to strategy and future-proofs growth. Done badly, it fragments attention, cannibalises portfolio, seeds doubt, and starves the masterbrand of meaning.
Part of my day job as Head of Strategy at Dusted is helping leadership teams decide which products and services to simplify, which to elevate, and which to retire. Nine times out of ten, we cut before we add.
Three ways in which less creates more.
- Clarity adds up. Every extra brand asks people to learn a new story, shape and tone. Strip redundancies so the few shared assets carry memory across the system. Recognition rises, effort falls.
- One promise, many roles. Every sub-brand, product and service should play a defined part in delivering the overarching brand promise. Make the contribution explicit through naming and endorsement, remove overlaps so each element adds something distinctive while pulling equity back to the centre.
- Distinction shows. If everything is loudly branded, nothing stands out. Stripping back allows the most differentiated things to come to the fore.
When to lead with a sub-brand.
There are times when a sub-branded product or service earns the spotlight. That’s when there is a defendable, decision-changing difference that audiences will identify and value more if it’s named, designed and taken to market with intent.
That’s why we brought SS&C Intralinks’ premium, productised service to the fore with Link AI. This proprietary, bank-grade ‘intelligence engine’ is an expression of the masterbrand’s core strengths of tech innovation and highest security. By giving Link a clear identity, tightly locked to SS&C Intralinks, we signalled category-leading capability while reinforcing the masterbrand promise. The result is a standout offer in a crowded space that adds distinction to the portfolio, building understanding and trust, while pulling equity back to the centre.
Simplify to strengthen.
If sub-brands are duplicating meaning, masking the offer, confusing navigation, or fragmenting credibility, we recommend pruning.
Cubic³ is a recent example. Formerly misidentified as a telco, the business had evolved into a software powerhouse for software-defined vehicles. Our job was to re-position the company as software-first and rationalise a fragmented architecture. We replaced unnecessary sub-labels with plain-English descriptors inside a monolithic, masterbrand-led system. Then we threaded a single “³” through the structure, from masterbrand to service modules, to signal that every element multiplies value. It’s cleaner, clearer, and built to scale.
New category, new frame.
When audiences want distance from old codes, don’t tinker. Make space instead. This is when a new category demands its own brand.
Electric mobility is a clear example. New generation EV buyers want separation from ICE conventions across tech, experience and values. For Mahindra’s electric business, we created a distinct future-facing category brand to meet those expectations. Within this we also built out ingredient brands where components signal higher spec and premium materials including the INGLO platform, MAIA interface, and advanced Powertrain. The result is an architecture that’s intuitive to navigate, protects the difference from legacy bleed-through, and elevates the parts that genuinely move choice.
The Dusted way to keep our approach simple and pragmatic.
- Start with outcomes. Architecture is a means to an end: growth, margin, valuation, reputation. We model options against how products add value, how buyers behave, and how teams sell.
- Define the promise. Nail the masterbrand promise (proposition and positioning) and spell out how every sub-brand, product and service – via clear value propositions and roles—lands that promise in market. If it strengthens the promise, it stays. If it dilutes or duplicates, it goes.
- Audit the portfolio. Map every branded element to audiences, journeys and revenue. Look for how it serves the masterbrand promotion and positioning, any duplicated meaning, orphaned names, and places where descriptors would serve better than logos.
- Set hard rules and soft guidance. Hard rules lock equity. Naming conventions, lock-up logic, endorsement lines, ingredient tags. Soft guidance helps teams make good decisions in grey areas.
- Design for now & next. Craft the structure, design and messaging system to be ‘Built for now. Future-ready’. Deliver what’s needed today, while leaving space for the next five years of scale and change – extensible naming patterns, clear endorsement logic and M&A absorption rules that grow without spawning new logos.
Three recent approaches that simplified and strengthened.
Here are three examples of recent Dusted projects showing how different structural principles can help a business simplify and strengthen its brand system. They’re practical case studies that demonstrate how thoughtful architecture brings coherence, scalability, and distinction, whether by unifying under one name, elevating a signature ingredient, or creating space for a new category.
1) Monolithic with descriptive tiers
Best when you sell one reputation, multiple offers. The masterbrand holds the story and products use plain-English descriptors. This is where we landed with Cubic³: a unified system, rationalised names, and a signature “³” device to telegraph multiplied value across the stack.
2) Masterbrand + ingredient brand
Use sparingly, when there’s an acute proof of difference inside the experience—an engine, a platform, a protocol. That’s the SS&C Intralinks AI play: a tightly bound ingredient identity that signals proprietary advantage while reinforcing the parent.
3) New category brand with a family beneath
Create distance when you must reset expectations for new audiences. Then build sub-brands where ingredients themselves drive choice (UX layer, safety tech, powertrain, etc). Keep the physics simple: clear naming logic, visible ties back to the category brand, and a small set of reusable assets.
What to name (and what not to)
Not everything deserves a name. In fact, most things don’t. If your product or capability isn’t a primary reason to choose you, or if buyers won’t search for it by name, use a descriptor. A well-chosen name should do more than identify, it should amplify. Creating recognition, building trust, and reinforcing why people should choose you.
If it doesn’t drive preference, memory or meaning, it’s usually better left as a descriptor, not a brand.
Three naming checks we find useful:
- Differentiation: It should encode and bring to the fore a real advantage.
- Demand: People should remember it and ask for it by name.
- Dividend: It should build brand value – adding equity both to the product it represents and to the masterbrand it belongs to
Simplification works best.
Strong architecture only works if it’s easy to use. We arm teams with decision trees, naming matrices, and “when/then” rules.
For example, when a capability is proprietary and critical to a buying decision, then we recommend ingredient branding. When a capability is table stakes, use a descriptor. We also apply a single visual measure: if a page, deck or demo features more than three brand marks, we’re likely fragmenting the story.
Design enforces discipline. So, limit the number of lock-ups. Standardise how endorsements work. Reserve colour shifts for truly distinct tiers. If everything is loud, nothing is heard. If everything is different, nothing is Distinctly Different.
In Cubic³, we used the exponent to unify. In SS&C Intralinks, we used a restrained ingredient treatment that locked to the parent. In both cases, craft served clarity. And style followed strategy.
Common traps I try to avoid:
- Badge creep. Every new feature gets a logo. Resist.
- Parallel promises. Sub-brands invent their own “why”, weakening the masterbrand.
- Legacy nostalgia. Old product names survive because someone once loved them.
- M&A sprawl. Acquired names never rationalised, leaving a patchwork of look-alikes.
- Design overreach. Visual variety masquerading as strategy.
How to be Distinctly Different.
Here’s the playbook I use with clients. Fast, pragmatic, and anchored in value.
- Decide your centre. Name the single idea you want the market to remember. Write it down. Everything else takes its cue from this.
- Reduce to essentials. Map your portfolio and remove anything that doesn’t add unique, decision-changing value. Use descriptors wherever possible.
- Elevate the few. If you’ve got a genuine point of difference. Proprietary tech, a safety breakthrough, a service model others can’t copy. Pull it to the fore with a tight ingredient or sub-brand identity that adds to the masterbrand.
- Make rules you’ll actually use. Simple naming conventions, clear endorsement lines, a one-page decision tree. If a rule needs a workshop to interpret, rewrite it.
- Design for memory. Fewer marks, fewer colours, fewer lock-ups. Repetition over variety. Amplify your signature moves (your “³”, your ingredient tag, your voice) until they become mental shortcuts.
- Prove it in market. Test architecture on real journeys: search, site, demo, sales deck. Measure whether time-to-understand falls and win-rates rise. Keep what works.
- Protect the centre. As you scale, keep asking if this new part makes the whole system more Distinctly Different – or just noisier.
If you remember one line, make it this: brand architecture isn’t about adding brands. It’s about building value. Strip away the generic, spotlight the truly different, and put more power behind the promise. That’s how fewer branded elements create more impact. Built for now. Future-ready.
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