ONE BRAND GLOSSARY TO GIVE US A SHARED, SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH.

There are a lot of varying opinions on how to define the differences between things like brand and branding, positioning and value prop. It can make working on a brand project feel fuzzy.

The definitions below were created to get us all on the same page, and hopefully gain some clarity—so when we’re talking among our teams or chatting with clients, what we’re saying means the same thing.

While the glossary below is organized by heirarchy and not alphabetically, you can use Command+F if you’re looking for something specific.

Please note: Not every project or client needs all of these terms defined. In fact, simpler is better.

︎︎︎

Brand is a feeling and an evolving story.

Brand is how people experience a company or organization’s ecosystem. It’s an emotional connection that exists in people’s hearts and minds that develops from the summation of impressions: interactions with employees, products and services; engaging with marketing and communications; and observing actions and business decisions.

Branding is what people see, hear, and even smell.

Branding is the application of your brand’s identity system across all of the senses—visual, verbal, audio, and even smell. It’s everything people experience from a brand, including marketing, products, spaces, and various brand expressions.

Brand strategy is an informed plan of action.

Brand strategy is the strategic underpinning of a brand’s DNA that takes into account a company or organization’s unique goals, market needs, and consumer desires. It’s made up of a set of immediate and long-term strategic choices that provide structure and focus to the intangibility of a brand and guides the creation of tangible identity and expression.

Brand foundation is a toolkit designed to help others build.

A brand foundation (Strategic Brand Foundation) is a set of strategic tools that provides the scaffolding to build a brand that functionally and and emotionally connects with people. It’s a framework that includes tools such as personality, promise, and positioning—all guiding and inspiring how a brand looks, acts, and behaves.

Brand expression is a brand’s outward actions and behaviors.

Brand expression is the combination of tangible and intangible ways an audience experiences a brand, from its visual design and verbal messaging to product ideas and business decisions. People come to know, understand, and connect with your brand because of its expressions.

Brand awareness is the familiarity consumers have with a brand.

Brand awareness refers to the degree of consumer recognition and understanding of a product or service. Creating brand awareness is a key step in promoting a new product or service, or reviving an older brand. Ideally, awareness of the brand may include the qualities that distinguish the product from its competition.

Brand equity is the perceived value of a brand.

Brand equity is the value premium that comes from how consumers perceive and experience a brand. Consumers value brands through things like awareness, quality, differentiation, associations, and loyalty.

INTERNAL

Purpose is why you’re here.

ASPIRATIONAL

Purpose is your reason for being and existence beyond profit. It’s a statement that everyone across the organization can connect with and meaningfully answer: why do we do what we do? It’s a north star that articulates the impact your brand seeks to have in the world.

Vision is what we aspire to be.

DIRECTIONAL

Vision is the articulation of where your brand ultimately wants to be. It’s an aspirational statement that points a brand to a future destination that describes your hopes and dreams.

Mission is the action we take now.

PRACTICAL

Mission is the articulation of your brand strategy and business objectives. It’s an action-oriented statement that describes what you do, who you serve; and gives direction and guides everything you do today.

Values are what we believe.

FUNDAMENTAL

Values ground brands in who they are and who they want to be when they are at their best. Values create a shared system for employees, guiding attitudes, actions, and behaviors; and they also help attract talent and grow culture.

Brand architecture is the relationship between brands.

STRUCTURAL

Brand architecture is a set of strategic choices for how a portfolio of brands works together as a system and builds perception with consumers collectively and individually. The various organizational structures (Branded House, Sub-brands, House of Brands, Endorsed Brands, and Hybrid) are designed to inform brand and business decisions from establishing an external value proposition to developing new brands.

Branded House is a group sharing a single, consistent brand. It’s a strategic organizing structure that puts the parent company at the top and sub-brands underneath, all operating together under one umbrella and contributing to the strength of the parent brand. Examples: Apple, FedEx

Sub-brands are a type of branded house with a naming hierarchy. It’s a strategic organizing structure that is close to a branded house strategy. Often seen in the naming structure, this direction is chosen when reputation risk related to various products is low, and new brands enrich the parent brand. Examples: Apple (Watch, TV, Music), Toyota (Sienna, Camry, Tacoma)
House of Brands is home to separate, independent brands. It’s a strategic organizing structure that markets each brand independent of one another and seeks to target different audiences with the same product categories. This direction is also chosen when brand risk is high. Examples: P&G (Tide, Pantene, Old Spice), Marriott (Ritz-Carton, Courtyard)
Endorsed Brands are supported by the parent brand name. It’s a strategic organizing structure that has many products and offerings under separate brands that may target various audiences or value props, but are supported by the parent brand to help with awareness and trust. Examples: Eggo endorsed by Kellogg’s, Xbox by Microsoft
Hybrid is a mix of single brand and stand-alone brands. It’s a strategic organizing structure blending branded house and house of brands. Some sub-brands may link to the master brand, while others remain independent. It allows for growth and change, mergers and acquisitions. Examples: Alphabet (Google, YouTube, FitBit, Maps),  Coca-Cola (Coke, Diet Coke, Minute Maid, Sprite)

EXTERNAL

Promise is a commitment to how a customer feels.

EMOTIONAL

Brand promise is an internal statement articulating what people can expect from a brand. It addresses the value a brand creates in a real, human, actionable way, helping the organization to create consistent experiences with every single interaction over time.

Note: Promise can influence your tagline, a short, memorable external statement that sums up your brand in a moment in time. While there are examples of taglines that stick around for a while, a tagline is not fixed and can change.

Positioning is market differentiation.

FUNCTIONAL

Brand positioning is an articulation of the space where your brand sits in the market—and in your consumers’ minds—in relation to others in the same industry. It is based on relevance and credibility, emphasizing the principal benefit of your brand by looking at what consumers want and what your brand uniquely does best.

Points of Parity make brands relevant. They describe the must-haves consumers need from your brand in order to even be considered suitable for the category. It allows your brand to show up as relevant and compete alongside others. In contrast with points of differentiation, a brand’s points of parity are similar to competitors.
Points of Differentiation make brands stand out. They describe how your brand delivers on its value prop, differentiates from others, and why a consumer would choose your brand over another. Points of differentiation are designed to give your brand a competitive advantage and edge over competitors, helping you gain or maintain leadership in a market.
Value Proposition solves a consumer’s pain point. It’s the articulation of solving current customer’s needs and what functional, differentiating value your brand offers in solving that problem or challenge. A value proposition focuses on product features, which may change over time.
Reasons to Believe are proof points. They are a list of rational and emotional benefits that address consumer’s needs and communicate why they should believe in your brand and its offering. They are the value your customer experiences after using your product or service, and how you earn trust and gain credibility.

Personality is a set of relatable characteristics.

VISCERAL

Brand personality is how consumers perceive and relate to your brand. As a tool, these human characteristics drive how the brand is designed to show up in things like marketing, communication, products, services, actions, and behaviors.

Brand Star is a tool to develop a people-y brand. The star visualizes a brand’s holistic, multi-dimensional personality. Each point on the star defines a key characteristic of who you are as a brand, balanced in tension with the opposite point on the star.
Brand Equalizer is a tool to imagine various trait intensities. It visualizes a brand’s key characteristics that can be dialed up or down depending on the situation or consumer touchpoint. The tool encourages us to explore various ways for a brand to flex and show up in the world while also having constraints.

Brand principles are human-centered design guidelines.

Brand principles are a set of fundamental guidelines and guardrails foundational for making strategic brand decisions. Derived from user insights, these actionable statements ensure future design choices and behaviors are made in service of your consumer.

How are brand principles different than design principles? Design principles are a system of foundational choices for making graphic design decisions. They are used as guidelines in how the brand expresses itself visually, and ensure a brand is visualized consistently.

VISUAL & VERBAL
EXPRESSION

Brand identity is a distinct system of elements.

Brand identity is a sum of the foundational tools that make up your brand’s design system such as a logo, typography, color palette, iconography, voice, audio, and more. Designers leverage these identity elements to create clear and consistent brand expressions.

Brand narrative is the story of a brand’s heart and soul.

A brand narrative (aka brand story) conveys the essence of a brand written to express who we are, why we exist, who we seek to connect with, as well as our challenges and aspirations as a brand. It can be both an internal rallying cry for those who will champion and build it, as well as inspiration for creating outward-facing messaging for the world.

What about a manifesto? A manifesto is a type of brand narrative. It’s a written, rallying narrative that is used to inspire and excite an internal and external brand audience around what your brand believes and the actions it seeks to take. It is an active declaration of what your collective brand stands for: its intentions, desires, views, and vision.

Voice is who a brand always is, and tone is how the brand voice varies.

Voice is how a brand speaks in a way that feels true to its values and sets it apart from its competitors or other experiences. Having a clear voice gives brands the power to connect with customers beyond what is said, but how it is said.

Tone is the way voice is expressed in different contexts, sounds to its audience, and situationally adapts such as when it introduces itself, owns up to a mistake, or celebrates. Inspired by the Brand Personality, tone allows for flexibility to shift between context and environments.

Content strategy informs choices made about content.

Content strategy is an integrated set of choices for developing content directed at a specific audience for a specific moment in time. It informs what content an organization needs to create, acquire, and maintain in order to serve their audience.

Communication journey visualizes the whole conversation.

A Communication journey maps out moments along an experience or service timeline where and when consumers interact with your brand. It’s used to visualize a broad view of your customer’s overall experience across mediums so you can more deeply understand how your cohesive brand is brought to life, and spot opportunities where to strengthen brand messaging.