Behind the scenes of a sub-brand

By Fiona Czerniawska.

Sub-branding is all the rage. Whether they’re doing it loudly or quietly, externally or internally, there’s hardly a big consulting firm on the planet that’s not spawned a few sub-brands in the last couple of years. 

To sub-brand, or not to sub-brand, is of course a difficult question in its own right. Firms that have fought to integrate acquisitions or operate on more global footing are rightly nervous that they’ll pave the way to brand-related chaos. Sub-brands are like herds of sheep and require careful shepherding. It’s not enough to drive them out into the field and leave them be: You need to check that they’ve not hurled themselves from precipices or trapped themselves in dead-end ravines. For all that, this is an argument that seems to have been won overall: Sub-branding is now an accepted aspect of the way a consulting firm presents itself to its clients and future employees.

However, it turns out that we’ve moved the focus of the challenge, but not done away with it entirely. Sub-brands may simplify things from a client point of view, but they complicate things internally; it moves the discussion from “What do we do?” to “Where do I belong?” The “master brand” idea helped preserve the “one firm” ideal. 

I’ve been lucky over the last couple of weeks to have talked to various people grappling with the ramifications of sub-branding inside their consulting firms. Although everyone has their own perspective, some common themes emerge:

• Once you’ve let the genie out of the bottle, it’s hard to get it back in: Particularly where a firm is launching up-market versions of itself, the allocation of people to the new sub-brand is deeply contentious. You’re let in, it feels, not because you’re an expert in a particular field, but because you’re smarter, better, etc. The people who are left behind, who think of themselves as equally smart (perhaps because the selection process is pretty opaque), retaliate by launching their own sub-brand. Inevitably, the sub-brands overlap and compete; everyone wants to be the smartest. This creates a domino effect: One sub-brand inevitably leads to another, and another, and another…
• The politics become overwhelming: With everyone trying to stake out their claim to a particular piece of consulting land, the internal “debate” becomes deafening. Certainly, it distracts people from what they should be doing: focusing on delivering value to their clients.
• Systems and processes no longer act as glue: It’s often the little things that keep big things together. But, as different sub-brands inevitably result in different business models (skills sets, price points, etc.), people look to change their systems and processes. Complexity and disagreement overwhelms the common ground.
• The vision is missing: Running a consulting firm would challenge the best of shepherds, because consultants are an independent-minded bunch. What people realise is that the single overarching brand becomes too remote from their daily lives, too corporate, too theoretical.

What this boils down to is leadership. Sub-brands aren’t impossible to live with, but they do require someone at the top who’s capable of banging heads together when the need arises – and that’s not something that’s easy in an industry where consensus usually rules.