Glossary

Acronym branding can be an effective way to create a memorable brand name that customers can identify with quickly and easily. It helps differentiate a company from its competitors and gives it a more modern look. And, when properly used, it can even inject some fun into the mix! When creating an acronym-based brand name, founders must consider how people will pronounce the letters associated with their acronym - if they don't spell out what the letters stand for. Additionally, companies should ensure that acronyms are unique enough not to be confused with other brands on the market. For example, IBM stands for International Business Machines while HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. With the right name, acronym branding can be a powerful way to make your company stand out from the competition. Plus, it's an incredibly SEO optimized keyword strategy - all those acronyms add up quickly! Whether you use them as part of a product or service name, as part of a slogan, or just for fun, leveraging acronym branding is a great tool in any entrepreneur’s arsenal. Acronym branding can help companies create memorable brand names that customers can easily identify with. Not only does it help differentiate your business from its competitors but it also adds some fun into the mix! When creating an acronym-based brand name, founders must consider how people will pronounce the letters associated with

A brand is a combination of tangible and intangible elements which an organization or individual perceives when looking at one's business. It represents a company's values and offerings, and can be interpreted differently by different people. Brand promise, perception, experience, interaction, and consistency are all factors that influence how one's brand is perceived. A successful branding strategy works to distinguish one's identity from competitors while remaining consistent through various communication channels. Understanding the impact of these components is key to creating a powerful brand presence.

A brand ambassador’s definition has been ever changing in the world that is so heavily dominated by social media. A brand ambassador can be anyone that would be an advocate for your brand, or product. However in business terms, typically companies guage what they can measure, which typically is a paid advocate or employee of the company. In todays society that revolves around “influencers” a brand ambassador can be someone with a social media following that promotes a product to their followers in exchange for a discount, rather than real pay. Celebrity endorsements have always been a staple of brand ambassadorship, but with the rise of so many small communities on social media, companies can now leverage smaller localized communities to spread their brand message and promise.

Archetypes offer a great way to better understand how to create effective branding and marketing strategies, as they provide insight into the essential personality traits that people most associate with a brand. By utilizing archetypes, brands can identify which type of archetype their ideal customer falls into and craft powerful messages that resonate with them. Additionally, using archetypes helps brands stay focused on the core values of their business and maintain consistency in their messaging across all channels. For example, The Hero archetype is often associated with qualities such as courage, strength, ambition, focus and determination – perfect qualities for any business looking to motivate customers around its product or service.

The organizational system that defines how a company’s individual brands relate to and interact with one another. This organizational system allows for clarity, hierarchy specific roles for each business as it relates to the parent and sister brands and products. It helps enable and differentiate their customer base as well as product offerings.

An individual element that is part of a larger outward-facing brand experience. Brand assets include everything from typefaces photographs, colors, patterns, and voice and tone. The brand assets must work together in order to create a consistent, distinct, and standout brand experience. Each asset can stand alone to spark recognition of the brand, however the union of all these elements is what creates a consistent cohesive brand experience. When it comes to creating an effective brand, it is important to choose the right assets that are both aesthetically pleasing and align with the target audience. As every company's needs are unique, it is essential that brand assets be carefully selected to ensure they effectively communicate the brand message and convey a distinct image.

Brand attributes are usually humanized adjectives that help build the personality and qualities of the business. These brand attributes help establish the voice and tone of the brand which helps inform the brand assets and visual language for the brand. The Brand attributes must be used to create a unique and differentiated brand that can stand out in the competitive landscape.

Usually occurring at the discovery phase of a brand project, the brand audit is a thorough investigation into the brand and business. In the brand audit you may uncover performance, position and customer insights. A brand requires these inspections in order to identify strengths, weakness and opportunities for refinement or new initiatives. The results of a brand audit will align teams and set the stage to prioritize and manage any course corrections needed.

The ability of a customer, a business or organization to be identify a brand in a very crowded market. How familiar are people with the brand’s values, product values, and buying proposition. Having a great brand awareness is often the goal for every business, as it can be crucial in launching a new product or service to a consumer. Brand awareness paired with brand preference creates an opportunity for premium pricing, and a greater sell through rate.

The process of uncovering everything about a brand in order to better understand its role within the competitive landscape. This process helps us gain insights into the business’s consumers and what motivates consumer action. The discovery phase will reveal strengths, weaknesses and what customers value and why.

The quantifiable and non quantifiable equity of a brand’s financial and non-financial assets. This is often measured by its quality of public awareness and influence. Brand equity seeks to represent the sum of all distinguishing qualities of a brand which are drawn from all relevant stakeholders.The goal of measuring Brand Equity is to better understand the differentiating thoughts and feelings make a brand valued and valuable.

Any act or passive experience in which a brand may enter someone’s mind. Some experiences are company controlled such as retail environments, advertising, customer service, products/services, websites, etc. Some are uncontrolled, such as blogs, news, and word of mouth. Brands become strong by building consistent experiences that combine to form a clear, differentiated overall brand experience.

The gap between an organization’s business and how they represent themselves. Leaving a gap between the brand and the business makes consumers distrustful of the company. Building cohesion by eliminating the brand gap creates a unified, consistent, and trustworthy brand that consumers can put their faith into.

A collection of rules and guidelines that dictate how a brand's identity should be used. It includes general guidance on things like color palettes, fonts, graphical elements and tone of voice. Brand guidelines help to ensure that a company's branding is consistent across all of its communication channels. They also provide direction for any external partners or affiliates who are working with the brand.

Harmonization occurs once you have ensured all products, messaging, and brand architecture is consistent through visuals, voice, tone and messaging. This consistency allows for a clear articulation of offerings in a familiar manor for customers.

The outward expression of a brand as it is viewed and communicated in the market. Often times, people confuse brand identities with a brand’s logo. The brand identity is much more than just the visual identity or identifier of a company. It is what makes the brand different from its competition, and can be identified as a personality, voice or tone, as well as a brand’s visuals.

The brand image is what the consumer takes away from interacting or hearing about a specific brand. It can be positive, or negative all depending on the information a consumer has gained about a company. Users base the brand image off practical experience of the product and how well this meets expectations; for non-users it is based almost entirely upon uninformed impressions, attitudes and beliefs.

Much like an website sitemap, a brand map serves as a visual manifestation of a brand that provides a top-level view of all its inner workings. Some high fidelity brand maps include employee roles, brand purpose, offerings and pricing. The brand map can be a very useful tool during employee onboarding and training.

The application of human personality traits to your business or brand. These traits inform brand behavior and are built into communication, packaging, advertising and other collateral types.

The space in which a brand occupies, in the competitive landscape. This can often be a moving target as many clients are positioned as one thing, however they are looking to pivot into a new space. By understanding where your business is currently positioned, you can better understand where the opportunity for success lies.

A concise, very clear, and focused statement that describes the brand’s position and inspires the company.

A customer’s preference between two brands in a particular category or realm.The act of a customer choosing one product over another.

The promise that a company makes to its consumer. Often times is a consumer’s expectations about what the brand will deliver. If the expectation is met or underachieving it can create a point of friction to consumer.

A more extensive version of the Brand Guideline in which every instance of how a brand’s mark may be used, and a guide for printing and sizing. This rulebook is extremely comprehensive and affirms the principles of a brand and provides guidance for understanding its legacy, vision, mission, personality and attributes. Brand standards inform staff, external agencies and vendors of how to create a cohesive brand across all brand experiences.

The strategy behind how an organization communicates its values and vision to its target audience. This encompasses everything from defining goals, identifying customer needs, creating messaging that resonates with customers as well as developing tactics for marketing initiatives. A strong brand strategy ensures that customers have consistent experiences with the brand and can easily recognize it.

Values that a company holds to as irrevocable values that guide how the company builds new products, brands, and communicates outwardly. Brand values steer the company. Brand values are the internal attributes that establish purpose and guide its decisions and behaviors.

This involves the strategic process of designing, choosing, and integrating unique characteristics to distinguish a product, service, or business in a meaningful, captivating, and persuasive manner. Branding aims to establish a distinctive identity in the market, creating an emotional connection with consumers and fostering customer loyalty.

Branding agencies specialize in creating differentiated, compelling and meaningful brand experiences for companies. Unlike advertising or marketing agencies, branding agencies focus on building brands that attract and pull consumers to them.

This strategy involves two or more companies with aligned values, but distinct target consumers, joining forces for a synergistic effect. This potent collaboration benefits from the strengths of both brands and broadens audience reach, creating a powerful brand strategy.

An all-encompassing term referring to any and all marketing and product materials used for a company. This includes menus, brochures, presentation templates, email signatures, email templates, business cards, data sheets, case studies, etc.

The use and guidelines around how color is used to distinguish a brand, product, or sections of its business. A color system can consist of primary and secondary palettes of print and digital color values.

Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works.

Copyright refers to the legal right of the owner of intellectual property. In simpler terms, copyright is the right to copy. This means that the original creators of products and anyone they give authorization to are the only ones with the exclusive right to reproduce the work.

The core values are the key internal ideologies that help unify the whole business and align employees of an organization by giving them a sense of ethos and ideology to buy into.

Design grids are sometimes shown, but often the hidden underlying system of spatial units defining the organization’s use of imagery, type, and layout structure in collateral.

Standing out in the marketplace is a key goal for most businesses. Differentiation is the process of understanding what the market sector looks like, and how to position the business in order to stand out from its competitors.

This refers to a sub-brand that relies on the reputation and credibility of a parent brand to boost its product or business offering. It's a common practice in brand strategy to lend authority and trust to newer ventures.

Eponym branding involves creating a brand name based around a made-up character. This inventive approach helps to create a unique brand identity and facilitates memorable customer interactions. It's an engaging method used by various successful companies in their brand strategy, enhancing the brand's appeal through the power of storytelling.

Things you are unable to put quantifiable numbers behind. For example measuring how much someone likes a brand name, logo, or other piece of collateral.

Lazaris is an award winning consultancy and creative studio. They balance the idealistic with the pragmatic to build experiences that shape people and culture. The studio's work spans all mediums with a focus on the automotive, consumer packaged goods, fashion, food and beverage, gaming, hospitality, retail, sports and technology industries.

Our team here at Lazaris, has created a wide range of learning resources, assets, and materials available to the public for free. We believe in knowledge sharing, creative collaboration and helping to build better creative worlds. We poured a ton of time, effort and love into the materials we build in hopes to inspire future generations of creatives.

A mark that acts as an identifier of a brand. This mark can be used in various forms, such as a graphic symbol, a text or even a combination of both. It is also referred to as the company's "brandmark". The logo aims to represent the values and beliefs of an organization and is one of the strongest parts of any brand identity.

Stylized lettering that is employed as a logo or mark that acts as the identifier of a brand.

This term refers to a company that has secured a commanding position within its industry, either through the size of its operations or through its substantial influence. Achieving this status often indicates a successful brand strategy and strong market presence.

A company’s share of total sales of a given category of product on a given market. Can be expressed either in terms of volume or value.

A master brand is the overarching brand that encompasses and shapes all other products and services across the entire business spectrum. It sets the tone for all sub-brands, and its reputation directly influences the perception of associated offerings.

A short, formal written statement of an organization’s purpose. The mission statement will define scope, focus, in as simple a manner possible. Mission statements define what the organization does today, while vision statements describe what the organization wants to become or accomplish tomorrow.

A logo built out of using the initial letters from the brand name to create a visual identifier or logo.

A brand that acts as an endorsement to one or more sub-brands within a range.

A statement that positions the company where it wants to be. The positioning can be focused on product, brand, target audience, or business.

The act of repositioning, redesigning, or retargeting a new audience when the business deems it necessary for future success. Rebranding is often necessary following a merger, acquisition, or if the brand has outgrown its former identity.

Repositioning may be necessary if a product isn’t selling to the correct demographic, or when communication seems to not resonate with the correct audience. Many potentially valuable products lead an obscure existence because they were launched or positioned in an inadequate manner. It is almost always possible to enhance the value of such products by repositioning them.

A product or service brand that lives under a larger business function or brand.

A short quick string of words that captures the essence of a brand’s promise. This expression often conveys the most important attribute or benefit that the brand wishes to convey.

Capable of being touched. Tangible assets may measured, touched or quantified.

A trademark can be any symbol or mark that can be visually represented and effectively differentiates the products or services of one business entity from those of another. This concept stems from the UK Trade Marks Act of 1994 and is a critical aspect of brand protection and identity in the global marketplace.

An analysis and quantified statement of the benefits that consumers can expect. Note: You can have a value proposition that isn’t unique.

Vision statements are future forward statements that speak to the future goals, dreams and aspirations of an organization. Vision statements describe what the organization wants to become or accomplish tomorrow.

What a brand looks like, which includes every single piece of collateral, whether it’s the logo, website, typography, color, packaging, or design systems.

Much like the logotype, a wordmark is a type of logo that uses letters as the visual identifier for the brand.