Branding and Marketing Glossary
We've developed this glossary of common branding and marketing terms for your easy reference.
A is For Awareness
The percentage of the target market or the population that is aware of the existence of a particular brand or company. There are two types of awareness: prompted, which measures the percentage of people who recognize a brand from a particular category when shown a list of brands; and spontaneous, which measures the percentage of people who spontaneously mention a specific brand when asked to name brands in a particular category.
B is for Brand
The combination of name, words, symbols, or design that identifies a product and its source while distinguishing it from competing products. A brand is a set of promises about a company's products or services. While customers cannot have relationships with products and services, they certainly have relationships with brands.
Brand Architecture
Entails identifying the brand and sub-brands that are to be maintained, their respective roles, and their relationships to each other in the brand portfolio.
Brand Asset Management
An investment approach to building the meaning of the brand, communicating it externally and internally, and leveraging it to boost brand asset value, brand profitability, and brand returns.
Brand Association
Includes user product attributes, use situations, brand personality, imagery, product attributes, organizational associations, and symbols.
Brand Associations
The knowledge, feelings, and beliefs that customers have about brands. These associations are derived as a result of experiences with the brand and must be consistent with the brand positioning.
Brand Attributes
Emotional or functional connections that are assigned to a brand by its prospects and customers.
Brand Audit
A comprehensive review of all collateral (both tangible and intangible) associated with a brand.
Brand Awareness
The extent of the presence and perceptions of a brand in consumers' minds. Their ability to recall the brand, for example.
Brand Champion
A label that signifies a senior executive as the primary advocate of the brand.
Brand Development Index (BDI)
Suggests the sales potential of a specific brand in a particular market area. It weighs the percentage of the brand's total sales in an area against the percentage of the total population.
Brand Equity
The overall value of what the market place, including consumers, distributors, and competitors think about a brand, or the value built-up in a brand. Can be measured based on how much a customer is aware of the brand. Value can include both physical, functional features as well as intangible, emotional features.
Brand Essence
The primary traits that characterize a product or service.
Brand Expansion
The exposure of a brand to a broader target geographic market, customer market, or distribution channel.
Brand Experience
The means by which a brand is created in the mind of a stakeholder. These include advertising, but also personal experience with the brand, word of mouth, personal interactions with company people, telephone interactions, company Web pages, and many others. Any of these experiences can have a positive or negative impact on brand perceptions, feelings, and reputation.
Brand Extension
Using a brand name with a well-developed image to market a new product in a different category.
Brand Groupings
A logical collection of brands that share a meaningful characteristic.
Brand Heritage
The cultural legacy or roots of a brand. A brand's heritage can turn a practical, commercial relationship into one that resonates with emotional connection.
Brand Identity
The specific psychological connections that are the brand marketer's goal to generate and/or continue. The outward expression of the brand including its name, logotype, symbol, packaging, and signage.
Brand Image
The specific psychological connections a target audience has regarding what a brand currently represents and what the current promise to the customer is.
Brand Insistence
The degree of brand loyalty in which a customer is extremely loyal to a specific brand and will accept no alternative brand.
Brand Interest
An individual consumer's curiosity or openness about a brand.
Brand Licensing
The leasing by a company of the use of one or more of their brands to another company. Typically, a royalty or licensing fee is negotiated for the use of the brand.
Brand Loyalty
The extent of allegiance a consumer has for a particular brand versus similar product offerings. Includes a consumer's commitment to repurchase the brand and can be demonstrated by repeated buying of a product or service or other positive behaviors such as word of mouth promotion.
Brand Management
The use of marketing techniques designed to increase a unique product's or service's perceived value to the customer and thereby increase brand equity. For products, this includes brand identity elements including the product itself, packaging, price, etc. For services, this includes customer experience and satisfaction.
Brand Manager
The person who supervises a brand group and directs the ad agency to create the media advertising for the brand. Brand managers usually report to a marketing manager, who usually works under a category manager.
Brand Mark
The certain element of a brand that cannot be verbalized, usually a symbol or design.
Brand Message
Combination of all the marketing efforts (website, collateral, advertising, etc.) of a company in combination with a set of statements that articulates a company's Brand Promise in an effort to differentiate it from the competition and to build a lasting impression.
Brand Name
That aspect of a brand that can be verbalized, including words, letters, and numbers.
Brand Personality
The characteristics that comprise the identity and image of a product, service, or company. A means to provide differentiation in the market by associating human traits such as warmth, imagination, concern, caring, or seriousness with the brand.
Brand Portfolio
Brand portfolio includes all the brands and sub-brands held by a firm, including co-brands with other companies.
Brand Position
The relative competitive comparison a product or service occupies in a given market as perceived by the target market.
Brand Positioning
Developing a specific, unique space in a market where the product or service will have the best opportunity for success. Includes creating an image or identity that is the relative competitive comparison the product or service occupies in a given market as perceived by the target market. Includes strategic management of a brand strategy designed to influence the target audience's perception of the brand and its unique benefits.
Brand Preferences
The extent of allegiance a consumer has for a particular brand versus similar product offerings.
Brand Promise
A statement of the relevant, enduring, and distinctive benefits that is made to customers that defines their expectations for all interactions with a firm's services and products.
Brand Recognition
The customer's consciousness that a brand exists as an alternative to other brands in the same category.
Brand Slogan/Tagline
An easily recognizable and memorable phase which may accompany a brand name, and is used as an aid to reinforce recall by consumers.
Brand Strategy
A defined approach to how a brand will be communicated, in what ways, and with what frequency and consistency. A brand strategy's goal is to develop brand loyalty and ensure the success and consequent profitability of the product or service. Includes identifying the primary target customer, the competition, the product and service mix, and the brand's unique selling proposition.
Brand Value
A measurable result of how the market interprets the brand. The economic worth that is considered attributable to the brand, separate from other physical assets. Includes assessing functional differences and the impact of the brand.
Brand Value Proposition
How the brand (product, service, or company) is characterized, its differentiation, and the benefits it provides.
Branding
The development and application of a grouping of names, words, symbols, or designs that identify a product or service and set them apart from all other products. The goal of branding is to provide a quick prompt for buyers to be able to easily identify products or services. The more distinguishing the brand, the less probable the buyer will accept an alternative.
C is for Co-Branding
Using two or more established brand names of two different companies in support of a new service or product.
Cognitive Dissonance
Uneasiness that develops from having conflicting attitudes, emotions, beliefs, or behaviors simultaneously. Contradicting feelings compel a person to adopt or formulate new attitudes, emotions, beliefs or behaviors or to adjust existing beliefs to reduce the amount of conflict. This theory is applied to the buyer's cognitive practice during the purchasing decision-making process.
Consumer Product
Products or services that can be purchased and used for personal, family, or household purposes.
Corporate Brand
The core representation of an organization, including its culture, philosophy, and its physical characteristics.
Corporate Branding
A combination of all the experiences, perceptions, and encounters a consumer has with an organization. The objective of corporate branding is to build trust in the organization, not in a specific product or service.
Corporate Identity
An organization's cultural identity or "persona" designed to display a specific appearance and style to achieve the business' objectives. Visually apparent through use of branding or trademarks for signs, physical office and factory structures, advertising, trucks, packaging, letterhead, and business cards.
Corporate Image
The perception that consumers have about a particular organization, based on a combination of personal experience and interactions.
Corporate Mission
A statement or statements that serve to unite organizational behavior by defining why an organization exists and its core values and intent.
Culture
The set of ideals, customs, practices, and social behavior of a specific group of people or organization. Typically passed on from previous generations.
Customers
The organizations or people that consume services and products.
D is for Demographics
The statistical characteristics of a population expressed in outward traits that characterize a group of people, such as sex, age, marital status, nationality, education, marital status, income, or occupation.
Demographic Segmentation
Dividing a marketplace population according to characteristics such as race, gender, age, income, mobility, education, employment status, occupation, home ownership, and location. Data can be analyzed according to distribution of totals over the population or across households as well as patterns that emerge over specific timeframes.
Differentiation
Demonstration or creation of unique characteristics in a company's brands or products compared to those of the competition.
E is for Endorsed Brand
Normally a service or product brand name that is supported by a masterbrand.
F is for Family Brand
The marketing of a range of products under the same umbrella brand name.
Focus Group
A qualitative method of research in which approximately four to eight or more people representative of the target market are invited to a neutral location to talk about a particular service, product, or marketing campaign for at least an hour.
G is for Generic Brand
A brand that indicates only the product category or type and excludes the company/manufacturer name or other identifying language.
Goods
Tangible products such as shampoo, apparel, and packaged beverages.
I is for Image Attributes
Those elements that help to define the tone, manner, personality, and style of a company's brand.
Individual Brand
When a manufacturer assigns a unique name to each product it produces.
Integrated Communication
A crucial part of building a brand wherein companies develop marketing communications that send harmonized messages over a range of media.
Internal Marketing
Marketing by a service organization that works to effectively train and motivate its employees exposed to customers and coordinating support service people to work as a team to provide total customer satisfaction.
L is for Labeling
Product packaging that displays product information such as identification of the object or its contents, promotion, or legal information.
Launch
The introductory marketing phase of a new product. Includes strategic marketing efforts to specific audiences designed to ensure the product's success.
Licensed Brands
A brand name for which a company has sold the rights to use to another company for use on non-competing product or in another geographical area.
Line Extension
Launching other products in a product category by using an existing, well-established brand. Line extensions may promise new benefits such as flavors, colors, added ingredients, sizes, or package types, for example.
Logo
Combination of graphic elements, symbols, or icons of a brand and its logotype arranged in a certain way to prompt immediate brand recognition. Designed to represent a product, service, or organization. The shapes, colors, fonts, and images are usually different from others in a similar market.
Logotype
A unique and/or custom font used in conjunction with a product, service, or company's brand logo.
"Look and Feel"
The well-balanced and consistent staging of the brand to create a specific impression. Includes design elements such as colors, shapes, images, graphics, layout, and fonts, as well as the behavior of dynamic Web elements such as buttons, boxes, and menus. Also includes writing style.
M is for Manufacturer Brands
Created and owned by a factory or company that produces finished goods from raw materials. Usually bear a chosen brand name, for which the producer is responsible for marketing. Manufacturers gain extensive distribution by building their brand names and cultivating customer loyalty.
Mark
The certain element of a brand that cannot be verbalized, usually a symbol or design. Synonymous with the term "brand mark".
Market Leader
The company that has earned the largest market share in an industry.
Market Position
The relation of a single product, service, or company to others in a specific market. Can be measured in terms of sales or percent of total sales in the market.
Market Segment
A group of consumers who behave in the same way or have similar needs. Market segment members will likely respond similarly to marketing efforts regarding products or services features, price points, distribution methods, and promotions.
Market Share
A brand's share of the total sales of all products within the product category in which the brand competes. Market share is determined by dividing a brand's sales volume by the total sales volume for the category.
Marketing
A social and managerial function associated with the process of researching, developing, promoting, selling, and distributing products or services to satisfy the needs and wants of individuals and organizations.
Mass Marketing
Communicated via mass media, mass marketing is concurrent uniform promotion to a large target audience. Mass marketing is the opposite of niche marketing, where a product is made especially for a narrow group of persons.
Masterbrand
An overarching brand name that dominates a company's products or services. Masterbrands are often used with sub-brands or additional words or numbers.
Message
The underlying theme or idea of communication via speech, writing, or other signal to the target audience.
N is for Naming
Strategically and creatively determining the most appropriate and effective word(s) to identify a company, product, or service.
National Brands
Products or services that are marketed throughout multiple regions of the country.
Niche Marketing
Marketing of a specially produced product tailored to the needs and wants of a narrowly-defined group of potential customers. Routinely employs selective media. Niche marketing is the opposite of mass marketing.
O is for Overall Family Branding
A branding strategy where every one of a company's products has the same name or includes a component of the name.
P is for Packaging
- The wrapping or container in which a product is presented, or the materials used to make it.
- The style of the wrapping or container in which something is offered, especially from the point of view of its appeal to buyers. Includes design, color, branding, shape, labeling, and specific materials.
Parent Brand
A brand that symbolizes a primary product or service and that can support ancillary products or services, or sub-brands, by appending its brand identity directly or through endorsement of the sub-brand.
Perception
The process of using the senses to acquire information about the surrounding environment or situation and the resulting inference based on our understanding.
Positioning Statement
A succinct explanation of the company's, product's, or service's value proposition. The statement includes how the company, product, or service is characterized, its differentiation, and the benefits it provides.
Positioning Strategy
To align a brand with the consumers' needs or wants while differentiating it from competitive product offerings.
Private Brand (or Store Brand) or Labels
A customized product or service for which a distributor, reseller, or retailer has exclusive rights to market. Typically, private brands are provided to the market as lower-priced options to other brand products available.
Product
Goods or services produced and usually offered for sale.
Product Brand
A product offering that is synonymous with a grouping of names, words, symbols, or designs. Includes the psychology of the product from its material features to social associations and feelings.
R is for Rebrand
Updating or altering a brand to better meet internal or external conditions. Mergers and acquisitions or brand maturation beyond a marketplace often warrant rebranding.
Relaunch
To introduce a company, product, or service, sometimes in a new form, into a market again. The new form may include mechanical modifications or rebranding and may be repositioned to appeal to a wider and/or different audience.
Repositioning
Marketing strategy to create a new position in customers' minds in order to expand or alter a brand's current market.
S is for Scheme
An established design format including colors, fonts, graphics, and images applied to communication media or computer screen displays.
Secondary Use Package
Packaging that can be used beyond its original purpose.
Service Brand
A brand that represents a service or work performed for someone else.
Sub-Brand
A product or service with unique characteristics that separate it from its parent product.
Symbol
A character or image that represents something else. A company logo may include symbols that refer to and/or reinforce the company's specific identity i.e. Apple and Chevron, for example.
T is for Target Market
The group of buyers considered most likely to purchase a particular product. Marketing and advertising efforts for the product are directed toward this group.
Testimonial
A statement from a customer or celebrity endorsing a product feature, fact, or a company service.
Trade Name
The complete, legal name under which a company does business.
Trademark
Words, symbols, or a combination of the two that represent a company's specific product or service that is legally registered for use for that product or service only by that company.
Typography
The art of selecting and arranging type for brand communications. May include incorporating existing or custom fonts.
V is for Visual Identity
Physical brand identity components including logo design, font, color, taglines, and packaging for example.
