By Maverick Steffen | Daily Marketing Advice

Sub-Branding refers to an organization placing their brand name on several different types of products or services.

For example:

While this may seem harmless, it isn't.

Sub-branding is almost never a good idea, and the reason is because the more you extend the scope of a brand, the more you weaken its power.

For example, Holiday Inn tried for years to use their company name aside their Crowne Plaza hotels. However, the Holiday Inn had become known for low-priced rooms, while the Crowne Plaza was relatively expensive to most travelers.

People were surveyed as saying: "Why is this Holiday Inn so expensive?"

It wasn't until Holiday Inn got smart, and removed their name from these hotels, which led to them being much more successful.

The bottom line is you want to avoid putting your company name on anything. After all, while you can have several brands under your company name, it is very dangerous to trap your company into one brand.

You can easily create several brands that are singularly focused on one benefit, and one benefit only.

This gives each brand amazing power to dominate a particular category within a customer's mind.

Consider all of these types of gum below:

Did you know they are all produced by Wrigley Gum?

Now consider these products:

Did you know these are all produced by Proctor and Gamble?

Now, what if Proctor and Gamble used their company name as the brand for all of these products? Would they be as strong in terms of selling power? Definitely not!

So, when you are ready to start a second brand -- do it -- and do not use your original brand because you think it will give the second brand more power.

What you'll find is your new brand won't be as successful as its competitors, all while you diminish the power of your original brand's ability to represent one singular benefit in your customers' mind.