We wake up in the morning and view the world through the lens of a consumer. But then we go to work and our focus changes to that of business manager.

The blinders come on and we tend to limit our sights to our defined sectors and the scope of our business.

One moment, we feel barraged with an overwhelming number of choices. A moment later, it’s your job to present your other “you” with more choices. Not quite a recipe for mutual gain.

Beauty is an incredibly crowded category.

There are hundreds of competitors, hundreds of thousands of items. Add to this the proliferation of segments that continue to emerge – from natural and organic to fashion brands edging their way into cosmetics, nutri-cosmetics, at-home devices, ethnic-targeted brands, beauty for men, tweens, etc.

Some choice is good. But piling on more and more is a recipe for complexity, confusion and frustration (both for consumers and inevitably for your business).

So, how do you create win-win brand portfolios?

Start by considering these indicators that provide an objective view of your brand evolution and future potential.

These should be customer-based, while being closely linked to actual purchase behavior and prospective customer purchase intent. In the absence of this, you really do lack the ability to enable optimal decision making and take the right course of specific actions.

Business…

• Fit with your business strategy and supports strategic priorities
• Creates access to new beauty markets and customers
• Marketplace values your participation (relative strength): name is relevant, provides customer benefit
• Implementation: resources to support; can execute with high degree of success
• Financial (historical performance)

Brand…

• Builds your brand value: fits with story and positioning, protects existing equities
• Creates desired new associations
• Clear relationship between new and existing brands
• New brand contributes to growing overall portfolio value
• If offering fails, major or minor setback for your brand

Customer…

• Addresses customer needs (today and tomorrow)
• Differentiated and superior value offering
• Market-driven and customer-focused

While these are only strategic indicators, they’ll at least begin to help you take a holistic view of your portfolio and glean insights into relative performance of, and relative potential across, brands.

About the Author: Eric Brody (973-292-1400 x201; [email protected]) is president of Trajectory, a branding and marketing firm specializing in connecting with customers and igniting growth.