The brand architecture mistake most deep-tech rebrands make.
A working framework for deciding whether a growing deep-tech or greentech business needs a sub-brand, or whether product architecture is enough, illustrated by blockchain-powered greentech Sertis' rebrand, led by Studio Krama.
What brand architecture means for a deep-tech company
Brand architecture is the map of how a business, its divisions and its products relate to each other, and which name carries which promise.
Studio Krama sequences this work after the positioning, mission, vision and value proposition are settled, since architecture organises brands and products to bring an already-decided strategy to life, not to invent one.
Done well, it's a way of helping the customer navigate the business for maximum result, not just an internal org chart.
For a single-product company this may not be a priority, although future growth plans and business models should always be considered at the start for efficiency.
For a deep-tech or greentech company running a core commercial product alongside an R&D or innovation arm, getting this wrong means the market can't tell what's shipped and stable from what's still experimental, and every new division launch dilutes the last one instead of building on it.
The real decision: one brand, a sub-brand, or a separate brand entirely
Brand architecture practice gives three broad options: a branded house, an endorsed sub-brand, or a fully separate brand, and the right one depends on the answers to the four questions below, not on preference.
A branded house puts everything under one name and one identity, and works when every offering shares the same buyer and the same basic promise (think, Apple).
An endorsed sub-brand, a distinct name and identity that still visibly belongs to the parent works when a division needs its own space to be judged on its own terms without cutting itself off from the parent's credibility. This is what we landed on for Sertis.
A fully separate brand, with no visible connection at all, is for cases where sharing a name would actively work against both businesses, different customers, different risk profiles, different experiences and no shared equity to gain from the connection (think, Meta).
Four questions to ask before you decide
Before choosing between a branded house, an endorsed sub-brand or a fully separate brand, work through these four questions in order.
What does the full future product roadmap look like, not just what exists today? Architecture decided around two current offerings and rebuilt every time a third one launches is architecture that was never actually decided. Plan for the shape of the business in three to five years, not the shape it happens to be in this quarter.
Are the offerings serving the same customer, or a genuinely different buyer? If the same person or buying committee evaluates both, closer brand ties build efficiency, one sales conversation, one trust relationship, cross-sell that actually lands. If the buyer is different, closer ties create confusion instead: the wrong audience sees a pitch that was never built for them.
Is the proposition connected, or fundamentally different? Two offerings can share a customer and still be different enough in risk, maturity or commercial logic that lumping them together misrepresents both, a proven commercial product next to an experimental one is the clearest version of this problem.
Given those answers, do you need a sub-brand, or is product architecture, clean naming and hierarchy inside one identity, actually enough? Most businesses reach for a new brand before they've properly tested whether better naming inside the existing one would have solved it. A new brand is the more expensive answer, and it should only win when the first three questions actually justify it.
Applying it to Sertis
Sertis's core business is B2B2C: blockchain-verified cash rewards for end consumers, based on their solar panel power generation, sold through distributor partners rather than direct.
Within the Sertis brand itself, Studio Krama built clear product architecture rather than a sub-brand: the consumer offer named and structured clearly enough that distributors could sell it to end consumers without confusion.
This is question four's other answer, product architecture instead of a new brand, because at that layer the customer and the proposition were genuinely shared.
Sertis Labs, the company's R&D and innovation arm, is a different case entirely: pure B2B, selling blockchain solutions to enterprise customers, and its work extends beyond solar altogether.
Running the four questions against that reality, the customer wasn't shared at all: distributors and solar households on one side, enterprise buyers on the other.
The proposition wasn't connected beyond the shared underlying blockchain technology, and the roadmap pointed to Labs expanding into applications with no link back to solar.
Product architecture alone wasn't enough to carry a difference that sharp. An endorsed sub-brand was: distinct enough that the market could judge Sertis Labs as its own proposition, still visibly part of Sertis so the core brand's credibility carried across rather than being built from zero.
What the wrong call costs
Skip the brand architecture decision, or make it without asking the four questions above, and naming and visual identity gets applied to a structure that has not been optimised for the customer. Existing and future. A new look inherits old confusion.
That shows up as inefficiency as the business grows, extra sales cycles spent explaining which offering is which, and value left on the table whenever a customer can't quickly tell what to choose.
Naming and visual identity is a key part of making architecture, brand and product effective. Brand strategy that combines all of this together will stand the test of time. Skip the decision and the new identity looks great for all of three presentations before it starts to slip.
If it hasn't helped the customer understand and buy more, it hasn't worked, forcing the business to pay for a second overhaul once the confusion resurfaces.
Not only is brand architecture a key foundational element of brand and company infrastructure, it becomes an efficiency tool for the business.
The result
Studio Krama's work for Sertis covered brand and product architecture mapping, identity, messaging, illustration, web design and sales materials, including the distinct branding built for Sertis Labs.
The team were equipped with new Sales Collateral clearly stating the product offer, enabling internal teams as well as distributors to close new business.
Their technology now runs in over 1,000 homes in the UK.
The full case study is at .
Why this framework applies beyond Sertis
Any deep-tech or greentech business running a core product alongside a separate innovation, labs or research arm faces the same four questions Sertis faced, regardless of whether the underlying technology is AI, blockchain or something else entirely. Map the future roadmap, check whether the customer and the proposition are actually shared, and only reach for a sub-brand or separate brand once the answers genuinely justify it. Reach for one too early and the cost is unnecessary spend building a second brand from scratch. Reach for one too late and the cost is a core brand that's diluted by carrying a proposition it was never built to hold.
Studio Krama maps brand and product architecture as the foundation of every rebrand, running this exact decision before a single design choice gets made.
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