How do we build our brand beyond our best-known product?

Build your brand beyond its best-known product by identifying the expertise customers trust, defining the broader role it supports, and carrying that role into regular communication. Together, the three steps connect an established reputation to a wider proposition without abandoning the specialist strengths that make it credible.

1. Find the expertise customers already trust

Find the expertise customers already trust by using audience research to distinguish recognition of a product from confidence in the capabilities behind it. Teledyne e2v's magnetron technology drove 90% of the world's radiotherapy machines, but the business wanted greater recognition for expertise that could support products and services beyond magnetrons. Research revealed strong industry support for Teledyne e2v, providing a foundation for a broader proposition. Ask what customers recognise, what expertise they value and whether their confidence extends beyond the familiar product. Forrester argued in 2025 that strategic trust rests on demonstrated competence, consistency and dependability, with technical and domain expertise remaining foundations when a supplier broadens its role.

Sources: Teledyne e2v: Brand recognition campaign, brand expression and visual identity

2. Define the broader role that expertise supports

Define the broader role that expertise supports by making the connection between established strengths and a wider customer relationship explicit. For Teledyne e2v, industry support informed a brand platform positioning the business as a trusted partner for both innovation and delivery. Its expertise in harnessing radio frequency power also provided the basis for the brand expression "Making waves". The broader positioning did not require abandoning the technical specialism; it gave that specialism a larger role in the brand's story. Use the same discipline when defining a proposition: name the partnership customers can trust the business to provide, and connect that promise to expertise the business already possesses.

Sources: Teledyne e2v: Brand recognition campaign, brand expression and visual identity

3. Carry the broader story into regular communication

Carry the broader story into regular communication through a flexible messaging platform, a strategic content plan and supporting assets. Teledyne e2v's "Making waves" expression supported messaging and campaign development while moving away from technical language without departing from the business's focus. The content plan and assets also reinforced Teledyne e2v's 70-year heritage helping clients harness microwaves to fight cancer. Use accessible language to explain wider capabilities, while retaining the specialist history that makes the broader proposition credible. Belden reported in 2025 that its global brand-platform development involved nearly 500 employees, partners and customers, retaining its heritage of connection while simplifying its product-brand portfolio and expressing broader customer outcomes.

Sources: Teledyne e2v: Brand recognition campaign, brand expression and visual identity

How The Frameworks helps

Expanding recognition beyond your product

Your audiences need to understand what you can contribute beyond the product they know you for. The Frameworks focuses on the gap between that product-led reputation and the wider business value your capabilities support. Its stakeholder and audience research examines how existing associations shape expectations, particularly among senior decision-makers outside your established technical audience. In workshops with your teams, it explores those perceptions alongside evidence from your projects and case studies, grounding broader brand claims in work you can substantiate.

The Frameworks delivers positioning that gives your wider capabilities a clear place in the brand, messaging that explains their relevance to business decisions, and campaign and content strategies that address established perceptions. These give your marketing and sales teams a shared account of your contribution, supported by evidence, so conversations with senior decision-makers can extend beyond the familiar product to the wider business needs you can address.

Let’s talk about building beyond your best-known product 

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