Brand Glossary
In line with my proposition of “branding without bullshit” I’ve tried to avoid jargon wherever possible – and explain key branding concepts in a clear, simple way.
B
Brand Advocate: A loyal customer or supporter who actively promotes and recommends your brand to others. They are enthusiastic about your brand and willingly share their positive experiences, helping to build brand credibility.
Brand Awareness: The level of familiarity and recognition that people have with your brand. It reflects how well your brand is known and remembered by your target audience.
Brand Equity – The intangible value and reputation associated with a brand. It encompasses factors like brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand associations, and overall customer perception, which can contribute to the brand’s financial success.
Brand Extension: When a brand expands into new product or service categories that are related to its core offering. It allows you to enter new markets and reach new customers… but can affect your core brand. Be careful when thinking about doing this!
Brand Guidelines – A comprehensive document that sets out the principles of a brand and provides guidance for understanding your brand’s Vision, Mission, Personality and Attributes. A great Brand Guidelines communicate how the brand ‘works’. It sets out how brand assets, such as your logo, colour palette, and typography fit together to create a coherent brand. It functions as a reference guide, and is a vital tool to ensure your visual brand identity is communicated coherently. It may also be called: Brand Standards, Style Guide, Corporate Identity Manual, Brand Manual, although each of these can be subtly different.
Brand Identity – Just as how you, as a person, look does not encapsulate your whole personality and identity, your Brand Identity is more than just your brand’s VISUAL IDENTITY – it’s made up of what your brand says, what your values are, how you communicate them, and what you want people to feel when they interact with your brand.
Brand Image – a set of associations attached to a brand identity in the minds of its stakeholders.
Branding – The creation of brand names, logos, characters, and strapline that help you identify your brand – and create a set of positive associations that differentiate you from your competition. This should be underpinned by a coherent brand strategy!
Brand Positioning: How your brand is perceived in relation to your competitors in the marketplace. It involves identifying and communicating the unique value and benefits of your brand to target customers.
Brand Promise – The customer value proposition or benefits communicated by the brand to the customer and/or consumer.
Brand Purpose – Why does your brand exist? – what is the positive difference it aims to make in people’s lives?
Brand Storytelling – using narratives and compelling stories to communicate your brand’s values, mission, and purpose. Brand Storytelling helps create an emotional connection with your customers and enhances brand engagement.
Brand Value – The difference the brand makes to the value of your company – as compared to an unbranded business and it’s products. What your brand is worth to the bottom line, and your shareholders.
C
Coherent – Logical and consistent. Forming a unified whole.
Consumer – The person that uses of your goods or service. Not necessarily your customer…
Creative – Relating to, or involving creativity to develop original ideas to create something.
Culture – The way you do things in your organisation.
Customer – A person (or organisation) that purchases your goods or services. Not always the same as the person or people who use them (your consumer).
Customer Experience – How a customer feels about your brand – and your products or services – over the time they interact with you.
Customer Journey – The mapping of your customer’s experience across all touchpoints (in particular those “moments-that-matter”) between them and your brand.
D
Differentiation – Relevant associations or the net value of customer perceptions of a brand, product, or service that sets it apart from the competition. Differention is NOT the same as simply “Being Different” – it’s being different IN A WAY THAT’S more relevant to your target audience.
E
Employee Branding – Engaging your employees so they learn about and are motivated and enabled to deliver your organisation’s promised brand experience.
Employer Brand – The image of your organisation as a great place to work in the minds of potential and current employees.
Experience – The impression you leave. The perceptions of an event, episode or encounter in the mind of a consumer.
I
Intangible Asset – A non-physical asset such as a patent, trademark, or goodwill. Your brand can be seen as an intangible asset.
L
Logo – A visual symbol or mark that represents your brand. It typically combines text and images and is part of your brand’s distinctive and recognizable visual identity.
M
Mission Statement – A simply written statement of the current business purpose to provide direction and guide decision making: what business are we in, i.e., what do we aim to provide for our customers and other stakeholders.
P
Positioning – The strategic intent (aim) or design for a differentiated brand image within a specific target audience.
R
ROI – Return on Investment – a measure of how much money you earn back compared to how much money you invest.
S
Sales Funnel – A visual representation of the customer relationship with a brand, product or service ranging from “customer states” such as Awareness, Consideration, Trial, Repeat purchase, to Loyalty.
SEO – Short for Search Engine Optimisation – increasing the chances that your website shows up in search engines such as Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo.
Strapline: A short phrase or slogan that conveys the essence or key message of a brand. It is often used in marketing and advertising to help people remember and associate it with the brand. Sometimes called a tagline. An example is Nike’s “Just do it”.
T
Target Audience: The specific group of people that your brand aims to reach and engage with. The individuals who are most likely to be interested in what your brand has to offer.
Trademark – A distinctive mark or feature particularly characteristic of or identified with a person or thing.
V
Values – The thing that really matter to your organisation. At the core of what you do.
Vision Statement – Describes WHY your business is doing what it’s doing. It also shows where your organisations mission will take you. It can be delivered with an inspiring image, and serves to unite and inspire your employees to help deliver on your Brand Promise.
Visual Identity – A collection of visual elements that represent and differentiate your brand. All the visible components such as a logo, typography and colour palette help your customers recognise and identify your brand.