7 great multi-brand website examples to inspire you!

Multi-brand website examples are more common than you’d think. Countless companies in virtually every industry have embraced a multi-brand strategy in recent years, to help diversify their product portfolio, reach more potential customers, and increase revenue.

Even Amazon, the world’s biggest marketplace, is an example of a multi-brand website. It showcases products from dozens of different vendors in one convenient space.

As online marketplaces grow more popular, and consolidation grows in the business world, the number of multi brand websites available online will only continue to grow.

The only problem? Creating a multi-brand website that effectively elevates and optimizes the equity of each brand you want to promote isn’t easy. I’ve seen for myself how hard it can be to find the right balance when you’re nurturing various identities at once.

Fortunately, I’ve learned a thing or two throughout my career.

At Fabrik, our team of branding experts and digital innovators have helped to create and optimize numerous multi-brand websites. Today we’re sharing our behind-the-scenes insights into some of the top multi-brand website examples and what you can learn from them.

What is a multi-brand strategy?

Before we start evaluating multi-brand website examples, it’s worth taking a moment to explain how “multi-brand companies” work. A multi-brand company is an organization that promotes, and sells a variety of products or services under numerous brand names.

There are various ways to approach brand architecture when building a multi-brand strategy, such as:

The monolithic brand architecture:

Otherwise known as the branded house architecture, a monolithic brand architecture involves a parent company applying its name or branding to numerous sub-brands. Think Virgin, with Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Money, and so on.

The endorsed brand architecture

In an endorsed structure, the parent company endorses and supports other brands, but doesn’t apply the same brand elements to every entity. Look at Sony, with PlayStation, Walkman, and Bravia, for example.

The product brand architecture

With a product brand architecture, a company is responsible for running numerous different companies with their own identity. PG is responsible for Tide, Braun, Iams, Oral-B, and many other companies.

Sometimes, a multi-brand strategy might involve companies “partnering” with a range of other organizations to sell and promote their products. Amazon sells products from a lot of different companies, but it’s not directly responsible for most of those organizations.

Companies adopt multi-brand strategies to help them reach different audiences, serve different markets, and increase their income with a host of new products and services. Used correctly, a multi-brand strategy can diversify your income streams, and help your business to scale.

As an example, imagine if ASOS only sold products created by its own designers. While the company has 13 labels of its own, it reaches a much wider audience, and earns more revenue by partnering with dozens of other leading companies.

What is a multi-brand website?

Multi-brand website vs microsite

A multi-brand website is just one of the tools companies can use to promote various companies and their products in a single platform. There are various ways companies can run and grow their multi-brand strategy. Some companies create individual websites for each of their organizations.

These sites are known as “microsites”, or smaller websites where companies can build a strong online presence for each of their individual brands.

For example, Virgin has a central “parent” website, that links to all of its sub-brands, as well as dedicated sites for each of its entities, like Virgin Media and Virgin Atlantic.

This approach can be beneficial, as it allows companies to place different promotions and content on different websites, based on the audience it wants to reach.

A multi-brand website takes a different approach, unifying numerous brands into a single web presence. Banana Republic doesn’t create separate sites for all of the products it sells from different designers.

All of the products the company offers are sold through a single corporate website. This strategy helps the organization to improve its brand equity and reputation, by demonstrating a close connection with pre-established companies.

It can also help to improve the experience customers get on ecommerce websites, by ensuring they can shop for various types of products in one convenient place.

The challenges in building multi-brand websites

With Fabrik, we’ve created websites for various brands with different architectures. Some do prefer to create their own distinct landing pages and different websites for each of the brands they promote. However, multi-brand websites can be valuable too.

Showcasing various complementary brands on one great website can be an excellent way to improve your brand’s reputation, increase your potential for revenue, and connect with new customers.

Of course, there are unique challenges to consider too, such as:

Brand dilution

If multiple brands and different products are all competing for attention on the same website, it can be difficult to identify the core values and benefits of the parent brand.

There needs to be some alignment between all the brands you promote, to ensure that you’re sending a consistent message about your company’s mission.

Cohesion

It can be tough to showcase multiple brands in a cohesive way on one website, particularly if each brand has a different mission statement, value proposition and target audience.

One brand may end up getting more attention on your online store and in your marketing efforts than others, which could influence your revenue.

Brand reputation

If your company is closely connected with various brands, and one of those brands ends up struggling with negative PR or publicity, your entire website could suffer from a drop in traffic and visibility. You might lose your customer’s loyalty, even if they love the other brands you support.

At the same time, implementing the right marketing efforts for a multi-brand website can be challenging too. It’s not always easy to define which different products you should promote, what language you should use, or which audience you should target.

Pro tip: If you’re struggling with building a cohesive strategy for your multi-brand website, contact Fabrik to learn more about how we’ve helped major brands achieve rapid growth with our branding and website development services.

Amazing multi-brand website examples

Personally, I think one of the best ways to ensure your own multi-brand website strategy is a success, is to learn from the experts. I’m constantly evaluating the design and structure of world-leading websites, to discover what makes them profitable.

To help guide your strategy, I’ve curated a list of some of my favorite multi-brand website examples, with tips on what you can learn from each.

1. Gap: A holistic multi-brand strategy

Gap has produced one of my favorite multi-brand websites for a few reasons. As soon as you arrive on the Gap website, you see the company’s logo, accompanied by two sub-brand logos. Notice how all of the brand marks have similar components (the same color palette and style).

This helps to create a sense of cohesion, and connection between Gap and its other entities. As you browse through the Gap website, you’re reminded of the different companies connected to the parent brand, in a subtle and effective way.

The cohesion between Gap and its connected brands also continues on other, external websites. If you visit the Banana Republic website, you’re reminded of the company’s connection to Gap. The same is true if you go to the Athleta website.

It’s this alignment that helps to create a more consistent brand experience for the overall company, boosting its online presence, and connection with both existing and new customers.

Key takeaway: Create a cohesive and consistent experience, that connects your various sub brands and creates a familiar user experience for customers.

2. Proagrica: Uniting disparate product brands

When Reed Business Information decided to launch an umbrella brand for its agricultural division, it approached Fabrik for help creating a brand identity and website that would unify its various products, and elevate awareness of its solutions.

With numerous branded products in its portfolio, from Farmplan, to Sirrus, and CDMS, the company needed a way to highlight all of its unique offerings in a unified space. After we created a new name and brand strategy for the company, it set about creating a multi-brand website.

The site draws attention to company’s portfolio and target audience on the home page, as well as showcasing each product brand individually within a “portfolio” section.

This strategy means Proagrica can provide its customers with useful information about individual brands it’s responsible for, without overwhelming them with too much information on one page.

It streamlines the process of navigating the site, learning about different products and solutions, and making purchasing decisions for visitors.

Key takeaway: Create pages that inform, educate, and guide your customers to the right brand and solution for their needs.

3. Loreal: Uniting different brands around a shared mission

One of the major challenges companies face when developing a multi-brand website, is ensuring they can still build a clear and cohesive identity for their “parent brand”.

If you have a range of product lines intended to appeal to different website visitors and customers, it’s easy for consumers to lose sight of your overarching vision. That’s why Loreal’s parent company website is one of favorite multi-brand website examples.

It doesn’t just guide customers towards the various brands the company offers. It explains the mission behind all of those interconnected companies. The site’s “Our Brands” page outlines what the core focus of the company is, and why they’ve chosen to invest in certain sub-brands.

It also identifies how each sub-brand falls into a different “division”, aligned with the company’s core focus on health, wellness, and beauty.

This is an excellent example of how larger companies can retain a cohesive identity and image, by uniting their multiple brands under the same mission or set of core values.

Key takeaway: Unite your sub-brands with website copy that links your brand message to each of the entities in your portfolio, and explain how they address consumers’ needs.

4. Meta: A comprehensive approach to managing multiple brands

What’s the first thing you think about when you hear the word “Meta” or see the Meta logo? Ever since the major rebrand, I associate Meta mostly with the concept of the metaverse, extended reality, and artificial intelligence. But you might think of things like Instagram and Facebook.

As Meta’s portfolio continues to grow, its website has evolved to draw equal attention to all of its core focus areas and sub-brands. When you click on the site’s navigation menu, you’ll find curated collections of pages linked to each of Meta’s separate focus areas and brands.

Each sub-page has its own links to specific products and vendors, unique images, and copy. However, the same consistent brand essence exists across every page.

The CTA buttons, bold colors, photography choices and fonts are the same no matter what you focus on in Meta’s portfolio of products. This helps to create a consistent sense of connection between all of Meta’s sub-brands, and elevates awareness of all of their solutions.

Key takeaway: Use brand guidelines to ensure consistency across all of your sub-brand pages. Make sure your brand message remains the same, regardless of which brand you’re promoting.

5. ASOS: Simplified navigation and exploration

I mentioned ASOS above, but it’s such an excellent prime example of an effective multi-brand website, that I wanted to dive a little deeper. Website design can become a lot more complicated when your company sells and promotes a lot of different companies.

There are dozens of organizations selling through ASOS, so it’s difficult for the company to actively list all of them on their home page or even in their navigation bar. Instead, ASOS simplifies things, by giving website visitors multiple ways to search for the right products.

Customers can use the company’s search bar to look for specific brands they know ASOS partners with, or they can take advantage of the navigation bar, to shop for specific products based on their preferred brand, the fit they’re trying to achieve, and other factors.

It’s the great job that ASOS does of helping companies to find products in different ways that makes its website so effective. At the same time, this approach means that ASOS can place its parent brand at the front and center of its promotional efforts.

It doesn’t give one specific sub-brand more attention than another, which could dilute its brand image. It also ensures it can appeal to different types of consumer needs.

Key takeaway: As your curated collections of products and solutions grows, focus on making it easy for each specific audience to find the offerings they want.

6. PC Specialist: Improving reputation with name dropping

PC Specialist is a company we’ve worked with in the past, on naming and branding exercises. It’s also responsible for a relevant multi-brand website example. What works about this website, is how it subtly uses well-known brand names to enhance its own brand equity.

Rather than just listing all of the companies it works with to produce custom computer systems, PC Specialist highlights the names of brands computer lovers are going to be familiar with.

When you click on the company’s navigation menu, you’ll see products organized into certain categories, based on their connection with well-known companies like AMD and Intel.

There are even images on the website that act as social proof, showcasing PC Specialist’s connection with world-leading products, like the GeForce RTX 40 Series.

This strategy allows PC Specialists to promote multiple brands and products, while also elevating its own reputation in the eyes of its target audience.

Key takeaway: Know which collaborator and complementary brands to highlight, based on your understanding of your target audience, and the brands they respect.

7. The Outnet: Giving every brand a chance to shine

Finally, let’s take a look at a growing ecommerce store that’s making waves in the landscape of multi-brand website design. The Outnet is more of a small business website example than some of the other site’s I’ve discussed so far, but it’s created a fantastic experience for its customers.

Like some of the other top multi-brand website examples, the Outnet addresses its consumer’s needs by making it easy to search for the products they want in an interactive canvas.

The navigation bar allows users to search for products based on the designer they’re interested in, making it simpler to find relevant clothing. It also highlights some of the top brands the company is advertising at the moment, helping to drive more sales towards specific companies.

What’s more, The Outnet has created a dedicated “collection” page for each designer, complete with an introductory paragraph that tells you all about the company.

This approach ensures every company The Outnet works with has an equal presence on the website, and helps to create a sense of consistency and cohesion between web pages.

Key takeaway: Consider giving each sub-brand or partner a dedicated space on your website, with their own hero image and description (like a mini “about us” page).

Learning from the leading multi-brand websites

While there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for building the perfect multi-brand website, my analysis of the examples above has revealed some key takeaways.

If you’re building your own multi-brand design system for your website, remember to:

• Regularly showcase your brands: Highlight your multiple brands throughout your website. Include their logos and names on your website header, in your navigation bar, on product pages, and throughout your marketing campaigns.
• Ensure consistency: Maintain consistent elements when promoting each brand. Use the same fonts, color palettes, and website structure, to make the entire online experience feel connected, and well-aligned.
• Educate your customers: Show your customers the benefits of each individual brand in a clear and intuitive way. Highlight the individual personality, target focus, and mission of each company, where possible.
• Unite your sub-brands: Look for ways to unite sub-brands and partner brands around shared values, missions, or visions. Remind your customers why you’ve chosen to work with these organizations.
• Use connected brands as social proof: Draw attention to the best-known brands that work with your organization, to highlight your reputation, credibility, and authority in a specific industry.
• Focus on user experience: Make sure the experience for your customers is as streamlined as possible. Leverage search tools, navigation bars, category sections, and distinct pages to support your visitors.

Unify your assets with a multi-brand website

The bottom line is that building an effective multi-brand website isn’t easy. Even with all of these great multi-brand website examples to guide you, it can be difficult unify separate brands with the right design systems and best practices, particularly if you don’t have much experience.

You need to ensure each brand you promote has an opportunity to shine and expand your reach, while also maintaining a strong and cohesive identity. At the same time, it’s important to ensure you’re giving your customers the perfect choice of brands, without overwhelming them.

If you’re planning on building your own multi-brand website, the examples above should give you a starting point to work with.

However, I can almost guarantee you’ll see better results if you work with the experts. Connecting with a brand consultant and website specialist will give you the expertise and insights you need to build a stronger brand hierarchy, and a more powerful online presence.

Contact Fabrik today for help building your own multi-brand website, or check out our case studies for insights into how we’ve helped organizations like yours achieve success.

Fabrik: A branding agency for our times.