← The Marketing Architects
The Marketing Architects
Branded House vs House of Brands: What the Research Recommends
00:29:14
A 2020 study found that only the right brand architecture strategy maximizes reputation spillover while preventing underinvestment. But most companies make this critical decision based on emotion rather than data. This week, Elena, Rob, and Director...
Loading summary
Transcript65 lines
- [00:00]
A
I think that a lot of designers and marketers, for them choosing the branded house route, it can feel boring or it can kind of feel like you're settling or missing an opportunity. So it can feel like a really emotional decision.
- [00:11]
B
Marketing Architects hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Alena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co host, Rob demars, the chief product architect of misfits and machines.
- [00:29]
C
Hello.
- [00:30]
B
And we're joined by Beth Cuchera, our director of brand at Marketing Architects.
- [00:34]
A
Hey, thanks for having me.
- [00:35]
B
Thanks for joining us, Beth. We are back today with our thoughts on some recent marketing news. Always trying to root our opinions and data research and what drives business results. Today we're going to be talking about brand architecture and I'll kick us off, as I always do, with some research. I chose a study by Jung Joo Yu titled A Model of Brand Architecture Choice and a branded house versus a house of brands, and this was published in 2020. This study asks when should a company use one brand across everything and when should it split them up? What the author did was she built an economic model that weighs two big factors. Supply side relatedness. Are the products made in similar ways or with shared tech and demand side relatedness, are they for the same customer? This study found a branded house works best when supply side relatedness is high, but demand side relatedness is not too high. In other words, when the products are made similarly but they're for different audiences. This is because shared branding creates reputation spillover. If customers love one product, that halo can help others. But that spillover can also tempt companies to underinvest in one area, coasting on their reputation of the flagship product. Now, if the products are closely related in both how they're made and who they're for, then the better choice might actually be a house of brands because using separate brands disciplines the company. It signals that they're investing equally in each brand and it prevents a failure in one product from hurting the others. So that's one researcher's opinion, but I think there's a lot more to this conversation today to dig into. So, Beth, thanks again for joining. Beth runs our design team at Marketing Architects and has become, I think, a follower of and an expert in the Ehrenberg Bass branding principles. So I believe grounding this conversation by defining some terms might be helpful. So, Beth, could you define a branded house versus a house of brands for us and then maybe share A couple examples, yeah.
- [02:19]
A
So semantically these sound pretty similar, which can make it hard to talk about. Branded house is a portfolio of products that's branded with one identity. It's one brand placed in an entire house of products and services. A branded house. A house of brands is a portfolio of products branded with completely different identities. It's a house that contains many brands. Apple is a great example of a branded house. So it's one brand. Think that Apple logo placed on an entire house of products. The iPhone, AirPods, MacBook, et cetera. A couple other examples are Nike and LinkedIn. And then Procter and Gamble is an example of a house of brands. So Proctor and Gamble is the house. And then inside that house are many brands like Old Spice, Oral B and Pepto Bismol. A couple other examples are Unilever and Yum Brands. And then here's some bonus info for you. Branded house and house of brands are actually at two opposite ends of a spectrum. So for anybody interested in doing more research here, you can check out the terms hybrid and endorsed brand too.
- [03:18]
B
Love it. One way I remember it in my head is branded house. It ends with a singular thing. One house of brands ends with the plural. So it's many because I sometimes get them mixed up.
- [03:28]
A
I love that. Great.
- [03:31]
B
Well, Beth, why do you think brand architecture? We know it's important, but why is it often overlooked when brands think about their marketing strategy?
- [03:40]
A
Yeah, so let's talk about why it's overlooked first and then why it's so important. So I think for companies who overlook brand architecture, it's because of some really valid challenges that they experience. You know, we're not all Procter and Gamble and Unilever. A lot of companies fall under this growing small or mid sized category and we face very real challenges in this category, like releasing a product as fast as possible so you can get it out there before your competitor does, or finding ways to introduce new products without having to add staff members to your roster. Like, do we really want to press pause on a new product release just so we can consider brand architecture? I think that a lot of brands don't really have the luxury of taking their time and being super thoughtful. And honestly, for some companies, they probably overlook it because they just get really excited. If your team just created this amazing new product that everybody's really proud of, all the blood, sweat and tears that goes into it, it feels like it deserves its own brand. But sometimes this passion and excitement can actually harm the success of your product and the resources of your team. And Then let's go back and answer your first question. I also want to give a quick shout out to the company brand the change because they've been really helpful in my learning. So why is brand architecture such an important part of brand strategy? And I'm going to give you a five reasons. So first of all, it can help or harm the credibility of your new product. So for example, when Warby Parker launched their new contact lens brand, they used a branded house strategy and they launched the contacts under the Warby Parker identity. This is because Warby Parker has credibility in the vision care category. So their audience already trusts the brand name and that trust can transfer onto contact lenses. And the trust can also help with cross selling. So instead of going to a new company for your contacts, the consumers can get their glasses and contacts all in one spot. Number two, it can help or harm the parent company's brand. Things like its personality, brand stories and positioning. So let's make up a crazy story here. Let's say that Nike is launching an alcohol line.
- [05:40]
C
Just drink it, Just drink it.
- [05:42]
A
There we go. You're hired. It's launched, we're making dough.
- [05:47]
C
See how easy is that when you have a house of brands, right, you just adopt the tagline. It just works.
- [05:52]
A
It just works. So maybe, maybe Rob, you introduced this like really special formula into the alcohol where it minimizes hangovers for the athletes, gets them going the next day. But even with all these health add ons, the alcohol still goes against Nike's personality and brand stories. So launching the product with the Nike brand identity would probably harm Nike's brand. So we would recommend shifting to a house of brand strategy number three, it can help or harm pricing perception. The l' Oreal Group is a good example here. So l' Oreal takes a house of brands approach and they own the hair care product lines for Garnier and Kerastase. By the way, shout out to my friend Amanda who taught me how to say Kerastase. I was gonna say Kerastase, so she saved me from embarrassing myself. You can buy a standard size shampoo for $10 at Garnier, but it's $45 with Kerastase. So had L' Oreal launched Kerastase under that Garnier brand identity, it probably would have confused a lot of their customers and the price perceptions for the brand. Number four, it can help or harm your ability to connect with the audience of your new product. So let's think about hearing aids. I think Amplifon is a popular US brand. So let's say that Amplifon wants to use their technology to launch a line of headphones instead of hearing aids. So their current audience probably skews a little bit older and maybe some folks with hearing loss. So if they were to launch headphones, their new audience would probably be a little bit bigger, different age range. And this new audience, they might not see themselves reflected in the Amplifon brand identity. They might not even want to be associated with it. So in this case, we would recommend taking a house of brands approach and launching a new brand that resonates with with the new audience. And finally, number five, it will help you resource your internal projects more strategically. So let's say, Rob, you are launching a new product at marketing architects, and me and Alaina, we know about it. We've considered all the things, credibility, brand perception, price perception, audience. And we've decided that it makes sense to take a branded house approach and launch your new product under the same marketing architect's brand name. But you come up and you're excited. You wanted to launch this new brand. You're like, hey, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's do it. And as much as I love the excitement, love launching a new brand, who doesn't? Having this rationale helps me and Elena take a look at you and say, no, Rob, we're not gonna do this.
- [08:31]
C
I'm sorry, but I understand your rationale is very good. Thank you.
- [08:36]
A
Yes. And voila. Because we have prepared for this moment, we just saved the team a whole bunch of time and maybe the pain of creating an entirely new brand that wasn't gonna work out for us. So those are the five reasons.
- [08:50]
B
Those are great, Beth. It reminds me a little bit of. I know you were talking about the challenges that companies can face, and sometimes they're just super practical. Like, for us, I know when we've talked about the potential of doing a house of brands, I've thought, even just thinking about, what if the company has to use a different font? Like, how are we going to do that? Like, how do you get people to know to, like, use this font for one brand and this or this color for one or the other? So it sounds silly, but that can sometimes, I think, prevent you from building that house of brand strategy because it's just logistically challenging. You're right. If you're a smaller company and if all of these kind of live within the same teams, it becomes hard. I think sometimes we're tempted to make a choice that's more convenient versus strategically.
- [09:29]
A
This is so true. And I think we have to consider, like, how much money do we have available to make a new brand? And that can be a point where people take a pause and they just say, oh gosh, we don't have the money to do it, so we're not gonna do it. But Elena, like, sometimes it just makes sense to launch a new brand. Where's the money? Show me the money. We gotta ask around. If all the good salespeople say there's always more hidden money. Right. So there might be some extra cash in the bank to make that happen if we can make the case.
- [10:00]
B
Well, let's talk about making the case. I think it'd be helpful to dive a little bit deeper into both of them. So can we start with branded house? What are some of the strategic upsides of going with a branded house? And then what about some of the downsides?
- [10:12]
A
Yes, I will give you three upsides. So first, like we're talking about, a branded house costs less using that same brand identity. It's much faster, it's much cheaper because you're recycling what you already have. And this applies not only to the design resources like the logos and the colors, but it also applies to the brand strategy resources like that high level positioning. The second upside of a branded house is that your advertising efforts, they start compounding on each other. We know from that effectiveness research how important it is to stay relevant to our out of market buyers. So when they start to shift to in market, they remember us. When you choose a branded house, all of your brand efforts build on each other because they are off the same visual and strategic game plan. So it's a more efficient approach. Third, people might be more willing to trust the new product. When a new product is launched under an existing brand identity, there's that halo effect there. So people might be more willing to test the new product since it's backed by the trust that we built in the existing company. And then I'll give you two downsides for the branded house approach. First, there's a restriction in how you can position your new product. So for example, if your new product is really innovative, but that parent brand is more traditional, you're going to find yourself restricted by legacy positioning. How do you incorporate that new product in a way that lets it shine for what it is while protecting the brand memories that you've built for the parent brand. That can be tough. And then the second downside is that there is less protection for both the product and, and the parent brand. If you launch this new product and Something goes haywire, the parent brand's reputation might suffer, and then vice versa too. If the parent company has a falling out, it affects the new product.
- [11:52]
B
And how about house of brands? What are kind of the pros and cons of that one?
- [11:56]
A
Going back to my previous answer, there is a protective element in keeping brands separate. If we release an entirely different brand, and if it fails, that's going to have virtually zero negative impact on the parent brand. There's this built in protection by keeping things separate. And then second, creating multiple brands really allows for maximum customization. You can customize the audience, the positioning, the pricing strategy, the design. Everything can be new and tailored for what works best for your product. And this can open you up to taking bigger risks, if that's your thing too. And then I'll give you two cons. The first downside, cost. It's way more expensive to build out a separate brand strategy and design system like we've talked about. And this investment, it doesn't have that compounding effect like it would in branded house strategy because those brands are completely separate. And then the second downside is the risk of being perceived as ordinary. So the new brand doesn't get that halo effect from the parent brand. It has to start fresh, totally ground up. There's a lot of competition out there. It might just be seen as another brand in a sea of sameness.
- [12:59]
B
Thank you, Beth. That was amazing. What do you think usually causes a company to choose one structure over the other? If they've looked through all the options, what do you think drives them to make a choice?
- [13:09]
A
Yeah, I love this question because in my experience, it's actually an emotional decision more often than you would think, I think, because it can feel super fun to create a house of brands, especially as a creative guilty or an entrepreneur or somebody who's just like a good hype man. And then on the other side of things, I think that a lot of designers and marketers, for them choosing the branded house route, it can feel boring or it can kind of feel like you're settling or missing an opportunity. So it can feel like a really emotional decision.
- [13:37]
B
And Beth, so you mentioned you're creative, you're creative, you're a designer. So you know this question personally, what are the biggest creative challenges when you're extending a master brand versus building something from the ground up?
- [13:49]
A
Yes. So for a branded house, for repeating that same one brand identity across all the products and services, I think that the biggest creative challenge is boredom. Not for your audience, not for your customers. Boredom internally and this is actually a great point that the Ehrenberg Bass Institute makes. In their book Building Distinctive Brand Assets, they boiled this creative challenge down to three types of people. So the first one is a short attention span manager. This is somebody who gets really easily bored with the status quo and they want to change things up a little bit. The second is the disruptor manager. That's somebody who's more of a dreamer, an innovator, and they just want to do things differently. And then the third is the shiny new thing manager. That's somebody who wants to incorporate the latest trends, technology, et cetera. And the book has more information about all of this and how you can manage your brand and everything. So I would definitely recommend checking it out. For house of brands having many brand identities, I think that the biggest creative challenge is resources, sort of like we've talked about. And I think that this resourcing challenge, it looks a little different depending on the size of your company. For bigger companies, you might need multiple teams of brand managers, strategists, designers, marketers, et cetera, maybe one for each brand identity. It's expensive and it requires clear delineation between teams and who does what. For smaller companies, I think that they have to find ways to make do with less resources. So when you're on a small team or you have a tight deadline, the number one thing that you have to do is accept the reality of the situation. Like, yeah, we can come up with crazy inspiring, big budget, big ideas all day, but the smart teams who accept reality and they're going to focus on creative ideas that are repeatable and that can scale, it doesn't have to be groundbreaking. It really does it. It really does it. It has to be based on the reality of the situation. And from a creative perspective, I think that these smaller teams can get the biggest bang for their buck by following the guidelines in that distinctive brand assets book. So, like I said, definitely recommend checking that out. We don't get a lot of hard research in the design sphere, so it's definitely worth a read.
- [15:53]
B
That can probably save you a lot of time in the long run if you're grounded from the beginning. We always want to follow best practices, but like you said, sometimes or often, this decision comes to more of an emotional one. And marketers were often found having to compromise when we're defining a brand strategy. So what inputs do you think matter the most when you're deciding on brand architecture? If you could instruct your leadership or share, here's what we should look at. Is it business strategy? Is it the customer insight? Is it like, frankly, just internal politics? What do you think?
- [16:24]
A
For me, it's resources, time, money, people. So I would recommend for your listeners to make a list of all of the channels that they need to sustain. Like, is it a website? Is it social blogs? Think about how often you have to update them. Think about if you can reuse the same content. Like, does LinkedIn look a little bit different from TikTok? For example, how many advertising dollars you have to play with, how many people do you have? What's their capacity? You could even do like a share a voice exercise to see how much you need to spend to get your name out there. And while you're doing this, be really honest with yourself. If the resources aren't there right now and you can't find a way to pull the strings, it doesn't matter what works best in theory. Like, you have to go with what works best in reality. And I think a lot of companies find themselves in this bucket. Yeah, you got to be honest with yourself. But if all is well in the resourcing department, I think your next bet is to go back and consider those points of credibility, brand consistency, price perception and audience match.
- [17:23]
B
That can be hard to think sometimes. As marketers, our eyes are bigger than our stomach a little bit with what we can do. Always want to do more. Well, let's talk about risk. What happens if we get this wrong? Or say this never expands beyond a design exercise? What are the risks?
- [17:37]
A
Yeah, if we get this wrong, I think there's a lot of waste. When we launch a new product or a service or a brand, we are putting a lot of money behind it. No matter which strategy you choose, whether it's house of brands or branded house, it's still a lot of money simply launching and teaching people about this new thing that you've created. And your consumers, they're building brand memories off of this launch. So you are investing and reinvesting in creating a little node of space in the brains of all of your audience. And brain space is expensive real estate. If we decide post launch that we did this all wrong, you are abandoning that real estate. Nobody refunds you, nobody hands you a check to purchase your plot. That brain space just goes away. So there's a lot of waste there. And then let's rapid fire some other ones for fun. We could do lost potential for cross selling. Threats to a brand's image and perception. Wasted time, money and morale. Pricing confusion, brand confusion. Audiences might not be able to answer the question, is this product for me, harmed credibility for your new product, Harmed credibility for your parent brand, maybe lost opportunity to lean into innovation and risk taking. It can be a money drain for years. Media brand maintenance, size of teams, etc. And the risk of being perceived ordinary when your product is not.
- [18:53]
C
Wow, I'm scared.
- [18:55]
B
Yeah, I love brain space waste. That's great. Yeah, you want to be worried about that. And I think we can feel that sometimes when you see companies do a rebrand, when you're making decisions like that, if you already have brain space built up, it's a really big decision, it's potentially the success or failure of the new product or services that brain space waste. Definitely a watch out. Well, Rob, we've launched several new products as an agency. We did not have this knowledge, I am fairly certain when we were making those decisions. How do you think we did? I believe we typically took kind of a house of brands approach or how did that go?
- [19:32]
C
I mean, you have a bunch of agency people going, we're getting into the product business and we're, you know, trying to decide which products are good ideas. To say we were a house of brands would be an understatement. We were like an animal house. We were like throwing full toga party meets. It was all over the place and there's toilet paper in the trees and there's all kinds of loud music and. No, we definitely took a house of brands, but I think it was for the right reason at the time because we were exploring a lot of different product categories with very different audiences. We were in gardening tools to children's toys to senior product. I mean, we were all over the place. So we wanted to test and learn and see which areas worked. And, you know, as we've talked about many times in this podcast before, we basically settled into two very different categories. One being Hurricane with a mobility product and one with Stuffy's, which was children's toys. So obviously those two brands, you know, just don't have natural synergies. However, as those two brands matured launch, we started to build out additional products under those brands. So for Hurricane, we had the Hurricane go. It was a slightly different model, but we weren't going to go and call it a completely different cane. We were the number one selling cane in America. We're going to obviously leverage the power of that with Stuffies. We were looking at a line extension called Stuffy Babies. So of course they were fundamentally designed around the core product. So we're not going to go off and name it something completely different. So, yeah, Definitely had experience with both. And I think for, especially for Hurricane, I think it really helped launch that, that second line very successfully.
- [21:10]
B
Yeah, I was thinking of that of like the Hurricane hurry roll. Like some of those brand extensions have stayed under the same branded house versus all the different categories we're entering. Those became a house of brands which. Yeah, it would have been confusing if Stuffies and Hurricane had the exact same feeling. Well, so we've created our own products. But you've also worked on TV creative for many of our clients, our customers. Do you have an example of when like a brand structure that you were working with made a TV campaign easy to develop or maybe significantly harder to create?
- [21:43]
C
Beth already hit on a lot of these points really well. But I do think that when you have a very strong design system that you're executing creative for, you don't have to spend time and energy making certain decisions. Apple, it was an example that Beth brought out and their whole design system was around clean type, white backgrounds product is hero in all of their assets and that translated to television for many years at least. You would not see an Apple commercial for many, many years without just being against a white psych. And really great macro photography and cool music and smart headlines. That was their vibe. And so that just made the brainstorming process very easy when it comes to like a house of brands. I've worked on General Mills in the past and you couldn't have two very different cereals between a Cheerios and a Lucky Charms. Right. And you're not going to have a leprechaun all of a sudden start talking about Cheerios and Heart Health. Right. So it just makes sense that you're going to have very distinct assets because you're talking about very distinct cereal lines. But that's a lot harder. Right. You're now you're starting ground up every time when you're, when you're doing the work.
- [22:54]
B
That makes sense. Some added challenges there. Rob, we have to talk about measurement and Angela's not here, so this question is going to fall to you.
- [23:01]
C
So I'm just going to make something up.
- [23:03]
B
Great, great. That's the purpose of the show, is just making things up. So measurement. It's always top of mind for me when we're talking about this stuff because again, this question always comes up when we're deciding to do anything big with marketing. How do we know that we're making the right decision? What are some signs that we can look for to see that this is succeeding? So Rob, what do you think is the Best way to measure brand effectiveness when we've got multiple products or multiple brands.
- [23:28]
C
Yeah. Beth, again, did a really good job covering many parts of this. I think there's two main ways that you look. The first is the expected one, the one we all know about. And that's just your brand health tracking. Right. All your awareness considerations, preference, NPs score, all that stuff. We know that. I think the second one, which is the more interesting one, but it's a little bit harder to measure, is the portfolio impact. How are all the brands working together to help rise the boat? Are you getting halo effects when it comes to distribution of your brand of media buying efficiencies? Oftentimes we've all seen it where you're. You're watching a pod on television and you're like, those two brands are ironically owned by the same company. Well, there's a reason for that. Right? The media buy was influenced by it, but there's media efficiencies in that. So you're gaining momentum there. Are there cross selling opportunities between the brands. Sort of like the Avengers approach. Hey, let's put Spider man in the same room with Thor and see what happens. But all of those things can be looked at in terms of measurement of your overall portfolio. But it. But they're a little harder. They're going to be more anecdotal than they are going to be showing up on the CMOS data tracker.
- [24:38]
B
My goodness. Are the Avengers an example of like too many brands within a house of brands?
- [24:43]
A
Maybe.
- [24:43]
C
I feel like not for me. Not for me. No. Bring, bring the next one.
- [24:49]
B
I'm making Sam watch those movies with me right now. From the start, he's just hating it. He's not having a good time.
- [24:55]
C
Did he not love Iron Man?
- [24:57]
B
He likes Iron Man. He has something against Captain America. I think it's because that was like my childhood crush was Captain America. I think he's not into hearing about that over and over again. Okay, let's wrap up with something fun here. What's a brand that we believe has a really clean, effective design that maybe someone listening to the show could go look at today to get inspired? And Beth, why don't we start with you?
- [25:20]
A
Yeah. I love using Procter and Gamble as an example. I think if people listening now have time, they should go to the Procter and Gamble website and just look at all of the brands that are listed there and think about some of the stuff that we talked about today so you could ask yourself questions like, did this brand break away to get credibility in a new audience or is this a separate brand because of a different pricing structure? And I think you'll be surprised at how immediately some of these decisions were. Might jump out to you.
- [25:47]
C
Love it. Mine is a product that I don't consume because I prefer my milk coming from a cow. But I really admire the Oatly brand. I think they've done an amazing job with their design system. I think they've made the idea of drinking oat milk approachable and fun. They've really defined their category, and I think it really shows up in their creative executions as well, just in terms of really being different. I know their super bowl ad was awesome a few years back, so, yeah, I'll go with Oatly.
- [26:17]
B
Nice. Yeah, that one definitely stands out on the shelf. Does a good job. Top of mind to me was Viori, which I'm like a new customer of Viori, and I think that their branding really stands out in the space. And one of the things I love about them is they have a tag that's on the outside of the shirt. It's like a little square. And I just think that's such great branding because you don't see that with other brands in their category, and it really stands out. And, yeah, I think just think they've done a good job with their brand identity and might be one to take a look at. But, yeah, P and G Oatly, both great examples, too, that people could go, that's awesome.
- [26:52]
C
It's funny to hear that from your generation, Alena, because I would agree with you, a lot of clothing manufacturers are incredibly subtle with their brand elements now. Back in the 90s, it was like Guess and Genera, and it was like, here, I'm a walking billboard. Look at how cool I am because I can afford this sweatshirt, you know? And then that whole culture got rejected, rightfully so. And that became about values and value and values. But, yeah, that's a good one.
- [27:21]
A
My version of that was the Juicy sweatsuits. Oh, yeah.
- [27:27]
C
Bring that on so many levels.
- [27:32]
B
Oh, man. No, you're right. You're right, Rob. Maybe the Vuori thing's a bad example. It really stands out to me, maybe because I'm a new customer of theirs. But, yeah, I guess a lot of brands do that now. Like, Lululemon has a very subtle.
- [27:43]
C
They have a very subtle right on their shoulder, which I think was so brilliant because it was unintended, obviously. But that's the one brand you can see on someone when you're on a zoom call. You're like, oh, they're wearing a Lululemon shirt because they got the three little stitches right on their shoulder, you know, And I'm like, oh, obviously that wasn't why they did it, but, you know, you're like, that was that. That worked in their favor, I think.
- [28:04]
A
Even the choice about the type of tag that Vior uses, though, like, that's very different from Lululemon, which to me feels, like, pretty sporty when I see it. And Bulari feels a little bit more like, this is just relaxed. This is a cool brand that you could wear every day. So I think that's a great example.
- [28:23]
B
Yeah, definitely feels different. Great. Well, thank you, Beth, so much for joining us. I learned a ton. You did a great job.
- [28:29]
C
Absolutely.
- [28:29]
B
Thanks for joining the pod.
- [28:30]
A
Thanks for having me. It was so fun.
- [28:33]
B
That's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Taylor de Los Reyes for producing the show. You can connect with us on LinkedIn. And if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Now go forth and build great marketing.
- [28:48]
C
So back in the day, you'd actually. People would stick a pencil in their back pocket of their jeans, of their Guess jeans, so that their shirt wouldn't cover up the Guess symbol.
- [29:04]
A
Wow.
- [29:05]
B
And now Guess jeans aren't even really a thing.
- [29:08]
C
I don't even know if they exist anymore.
- [29:10]
B
Marketing Architects.