When Procter & Gamble took to British televisions this month to “recognise, celebrate and thank” mothers it had one particular parent in mind: itself. The real purpose behind the print and TV campaign was to showcase the US consumer goods group as parent to 50 household brands, such as Ariel detergent and Duracell batteries.

It marks the first time P&G has linked its corporate name to its brands in the UK, making it something of a laggard. Nestlé, the world’s biggest food group by sales, has been using its name across its 6,000 brands for more than 20 years. Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer group, has been banging the corporate drum for almost a decade.

Corporate branding, say its proponents, is a means of transferring all the good qualities of trust and reliability across an entire portfolio, be it from chocolate bars to cat-food or stock cubes to face creams.