The founders of the app-based credit line MoneyTap shared a vision of creating an inclusionary multi-product banking experience. The company’s gross revenue had surged from its first year, but while the business was doing well, growth was not coming easy because of intense competition. The organization wanted to expand its offerings to include a pay-later feature, credit cards, and digital savings and become India’s first full-stack neobank. The team’s current brand, MoneyTap, was a personal credit-line brand, and to expand it to a full-service neobank required a new brand strategy and a rethinking of the brand architecture. While branding and its concepts were perceived to be more applicable to consumer goods, the founders were convinced that their fintech start-up could only move to the next level by leveraging the inherent power of a strong brand.

The founders of the app-based credit line MoneyTap shared a vision of creating an inclusionary multi-product banking experience. The company's gross revenue had surged from its first year, but while the business was doing well, growth was not coming easy because of intense competition. The organization wanted to expand its offerings to include a pay-later feature, credit cards, and digital savings and become India's first full-stack neobank. The team's current brand, MoneyTap, was a personal credit-line brand, and to expand it to a full-service neobank required a new brand strategy and a rethinking of the brand architecture. While branding and its concepts were perceived to be more applicable to consumer goods, the founders were convinced that their fintech start-up could only move to the next level by leveraging the inherent power of a strong brand.

In the summer of 2012, the president of the leisure sector of John Keells Hotels needed to discuss marketing strategies with his senior management team. The company was a well-known brand that operated Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts and Chaaya Hotels and Resorts in Sri Lanka and Maldives. Each of the two hotel brands catered to a different set of customers and offered different value propositions. After the terrorist conflict that had plagued Sri Lanka for 26 years had come to a dramatic close in May 2009, an influx of tourists was expected from both Western and Asian countries. The company had a great opportunity to strengthen its two hotel brands and capitalize on the growing global tourism market. Of the two hotel chains, Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts was the portfolio's luxury brand, whereas Chaaya Hotels and Resorts was the economy brand. The senior management team needed to design a brand architecture for the company that would offer a sound business solution and help the company's hotel sector find its rightful place in the global arena.

Café Coffee Day pioneered retail café culture in India with its entry into the market in 1996. After enjoying success for more than a decade, the brand felt the need to evolve in order to suit consumer preferences and better compete in the market space. The Café Coffee Day management team commissioned a brand image study to better understand consumer perceptions. The results showed that although Café Coffee Day's "regular guy/girl" brand archetype had evolved over time, there was a clear gap between the intended brand identity and the image that was projected. To make the brand relevant to Café Coffee Day's core target group (i.e., young, urban Indian consumers), the company had to make sure that its positioning was relevant and clear, its brand identity was refreshed, and its café experience was well defined and differentiated. Café Coffee Day wanted to identify various positioning platforms through analysis of the company, its competition, and its customers, and then to evaluate these platforms to arrive at an appropriate positioning choice.

In 2009, the Mahindra Group, a US$16.3 billion multinational corporation based in Mumbai, India, had introduced a new positioning called "Rise" to provide meaning to its brand and help unite its various businesses under a common umbrella. Successful integration and implementation of the new positioning required the company to re-examine its brand architecture, which was currently a complex, inside‐out arrangement that resulted in a diffused image. Aligning diverse and legacy businesses would be a complex task, and resources were limited. A clear brand architecture would not only help the company to efficiently allocate advertising dollars but could also help in identifying investment opportunities and risks among the different sub-brands. Landor Associates India, a global brand consulting firm, was tasked by the board to suggest a relevant brand architecture model that would be relevant across geographies. Should the Mahindra brand be used by all businesses, products and services? Should the company follow a conglomerate approach and create a "house of brands" as P&G and Unilever had done, or should it follow a hybrid strategy?