The BRAND Word Book

Dear friends,

Thank you for reading my earlier blogs and sharing your views. I really feel encouraged when I read your feedback in the comments column. Friends, presenting my 39^th blog which is a first ever “BRAND Word Book” having 82 words related to BRAND to you..

 

BRAND ….. This five letters word has always fascinated and followed me from my school days, later in college and then OBC (now PNB) where I served for many years followed by a reputed NGO where I replaced a famous film star (on his personal request to me) as one of the ten Board of Directors (other nine were who and who of Indian politics, bureaucracy, and corporate world) headed an advertising agency for few months and thereafter started  sharing my knowledge and working experience with the  students of Public Relations. Though I never knew how a personal brand is created and cultivated but unknowingly have always worked towards creating SURESH GAUR a BRAND. And Thank GOD…Finally “P R GURU”.

 

Friends, we know just few terms relating to BRAND, but there’re more than seventy five terms that relates to this five letters word B R A N D. I have tried to include most of the terms in this blog. If you feel that some term is left out by me and if you come across any other term relating to BRAND which is not mentioned in this blog , please do share the same by mentioning it in the remarks column with meaning to make this a complete BRAND Thesaurus.

 

·         BRAND: Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. Everything that the customer experiences, hard and soft, real and perceived is part of the brand.

 

·         BRANDING: Promotion of a product or a company by means of advertising and distinctive design.

 

·         BRAND ABUSE: An umbrella term which refers to an outside party infringing on a brand’s intellectual property in order to take advantage of its well respected reputation. Brand abuse can come in many forms, including, but not limited to Counterfeiting, Rogue websites, Copyright piracy, Trademark squatting, Patent theft, Social media impersonation.

 

·         BRAND ACTIVISM: An act of taking a stand to help drive change in social, political, economic, and environmental issues that a society faces. Brands may choose to support these causes through statements of solidarity or pledges of action.

 

·         BRAND ACQUISITION: A firm's acquisition of an existing brand offered in the market by another firm.

 

·         BRAND ADVOCATE: An individual who has a positive experience with a brand to the extent they recommend or speak favorably of that brand within their personal communities.

 

·         BRAND AFFINITY: Valuable level of relationship that a customer shares with the brand and it is based on the belief that the customer and the company share common values and ideas.

 

·         BRAND AMBASSADOR: Person that represents the company in public and talks about its products or services in such a way that it makes other people want to be customers. 

 

·         BRAND APPEAL: Power to attract, please, stimulate, and provide interest for the consumer - all behaviors of engagement, which is the foundation of relationship with a brand.

 

·         BRAND ARCHETYPE: Categorization of traits and characteristics that are intrinsic to human nature and remain consistent over time. In branding, archetypes can be used to reflect the personality of a brand and engage with specific consumer personas. There are twelve brand archetypes: The Innocent, Everyman, Hero, Outlaw, Explorer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Lover, Caregiver, Jester, and Sage.

 

·         BRAND ARCHITECTURE: Logical, strategic and relational structure for all brands in the portfolio. 

 

·         BRAND ASSOCIATION: Mental connection between a brand and a concept – anything which is deep seated in customer’s mind about the brand.

 

·         BRAND ATTRIBUTES: Set of characteristics that identify the physical, character and personality traits of the brand.

 

·         BRAND AWARENESS: The extent to which consumers are aware of or recognize a particular product or service.

 

·         BRAND BARRIERS: Barriers to the success of a brand e.g. market conditions, govt. policies, internal and external environment i.e. target audience, and competitors, natural calamities etc.

 

·         BRAND CANNIBALIZATION: Process of creating different sub-brands (organizations) of the parent brand so that the parent brand can grow its customer base by targeting large numbers of customers.

 

·         BRAND CHALLENGE: Key issues e.g. what does the company’s name really stand for, and how is it perceived and leveraged in the market place and within the company itself?

 

·         BRAND CONSISTENCY: The way in which a brand delivers their messages in line with their values, visual identity and strategy, across channels and over time. Brand consistency fosters brand awareness and trust. 

 

·         BRAND DESIGN: How the brand looks. How it feels. It incorporates its colors, typeface, photography, graphical elements, and its logo. It brings brands to life, makes it recognizable, and makes it resonate.

 

·         BRAND DIFFERENTIATION: Means by which a brand is set apart from the competition, by associating a superior performing aspect of the brand with multiple customer benefits.

 

·         BRAND DILUTION: Weakening of the power of a brand which may occur when a company has too many brands and spreads its resources too thinly in trying to support them all OR When a brand loses its value from overuse. Value is lost when a product does not meet the expectations customers have of the brand.

 

·         BRAND DISTINCTION: Elements that make a BRAND recognizable, different and unique OR the quality that gives a brand prominence within its broader category.

 

·         BRAND DOMINANCE:  When such a strong emotional connection is created that an audience not only refers peers, but also rallies behind the brand in pursuit of the brand’s own growth OR To become the one place where people go for expertise, advice, inspiration, encouragement, tactical strategy or whatever position of authority the brand strives for.

 

·         BRAND EQUITY: It’s a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand name and symbol, which add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service OR a value premium that a company generates from a product with a recognizable name when compared to a generic equivalent.

 

·         BRAND ESSENCE: Brand’s fundamental nature or quality which is usually stated in one to three-word statement that expresses a guiding principle or attribute that's clearly understood and most importantly, felt by the customers. It describes the primary emotional reason they choose the brand and remain loyal.

 

·         BRAND EXPERIENCE: The totality of all sensations, feelings, thoughts, and actions evoked by a brand. It’s about designing a sensory experience that brings a person into a lasting and meaningful relationship with a brand.

 

·         BRAND EXTENSION: The use of an established brand name for a new product or new product category. Also known as Brand Stretching, it leverages the reputation and popularity of a well-known product to launch a new product. 

 

·         BRAND HEALTH: A measure of how well a company or brand delivers on certain attributes of a product or service that it promises its customers, especially how those attributes are perceived by customers in terms of quality and delight.

 

·         BRAND HEART: The essential qualities at the core of a brand that cannot be compromised, wherever it goes and whoever it talk with.

 

·         BRAND HEAT: It’s about how to create cultural friction and ignite interest of the target audience in a brand.

 

·         BRAND HERITAGE: That exhibits longevity, track record, long-held core values, use of symbols that stand for the brand over time, and history that is important to the brand. It adds “depth, authenticity, and credibility to the brand’s perceived value.

 

·         BRAND HERO: At the center of every story there is a hero. The hero could be an idea, a person, or a thing- to be effective at brand storytelling.  

 

·         BRAND HIERARCHY: Means of summarizing the brand strategy by displaying the numbers and nature of common and distinctive brand elements across the firm’s product revealing the explicit ordering of brand elements. 

 

·         BRAND JACKING: An unauthorized takeover of someone’s online identity by some other person. Brand jacking occurs when a particular advertisement, feature, quality, etc. of a product is used by some unknown party to gain commercial benefit. OR an activity whereby someone acquires or otherwise assumes the online identity of another entity for the purposes of acquiring that person's or business's brand equity.

 

·         BRAND JOURNALISM: The tactic that implies bypassing traditional media outlets and conveying brand’s story using journalism-style writing. This technique is rooted in the belief that consumers are wary of advertising or marketing copy and tend to stay away from anything that doesn’t sound authentic. Through this tactic, brands acknowledge the importance of elaborating engaging narratives and delivering them through multiple channels and platforms in order to showcase the organization’s value from a different angle. 

 

·         BRAND JUDGEMENT: Customers’ personal opinions about and evaluations of the brand that consumers form by putting together all the brand performances and imagery associations. Customers may make all types of judgments with respect to a brand, but four types are particularly important: judgments about quality, credibility, consideration, and superiority.

 

·         BRAND HOUSE: Where all product brands use the name of the master brand in their naming conventions and have a tie through their visual identities as well. Each product brand feeds into the master brand identity, reinforcing the brand attributes, and also draws down on the strength of the master brand.

 

·         BRAND HYGIENE: Basic set of values that the consumer expects to be in place for any business/service that they are considering purchasing.

 

·         BRAND IDENTITY: The visible elements of a brand, such as color, design, and logo that identify and distinguish the brand in consumers' minds.

 

·         BRAND IMAGE: Perception in the minds of the customers, a unique bundle of associations within the minds of target customers, a set of beliefs held about a specific brand.

 

·         BRAND IMAGERY: The aesthetic appearance of brand's core messaging that one can see, touch, taste, smell or hear.

 

·         BRAND INTEGRATION: The weaving of a brand into the existing story lines of film, TV, streaming, or influencer programming so that the brand authentically advances story lines or characters, lending a sense of realism to both the story and the brand.

 

·         BRAND LOYALTY: The positive association consumers attach to a particular product, service or brand and dedication to purchase the same product or service or brand repeatedly, regardless of a competitor's actions or changes in the environment.

 

·         BRAND MANAGEMENT: A function of marketing that uses techniques to increase the perceived value of a product line   or brand over time, and builds loyal customers through positive brand association.

 

·         BRAND MANAGER: Person responsible for ensuring the products, services and product lines that fall under his / her domain resonate with current and potential customers, monitors market trends and oversees advertising and marketing activities to ensure the right message is delivered about the product or service.

 

·         BRAND MANTRA: A short 2 to 5 word encapsulation of everything about the brand, which is not an advertising slogan or tagline, and not shared publicly.

 

·         BRAND MARKETING: An approach to communications, sales, product, and service that grows the asset of brand equity. It promotes the product or services in a way that highlights the overall brand.

 

 

·         BRAND MESSAGE: Value proposition of the brand conveyed to the target audience through brand personality to set the brand positioning.  It’s what makes buyers relate to the brand because it’s inspirational, persuasive, and motivational, and ultimately, it makes customers want to buy the product. 

 

·         BRAND METRICS: The characteristics of a brand that are measured to determine the strength of the brand and basic elements for establishing a brand identity.

 

·         BRAND NARRATIVE: The story of a company brought to life through a series of milestones illustrated by print, multimedia and/or digital channels.

 

·         BRAND ORIENTATION: A management philosophy that places the brand at the heart of the organizational decision-making. In a brand-oriented company, everything it does, both internally and externally, is informed by the brand. Everything from products and services to the recruitment policies and the office layout - it is all designed to express and reinforce the brand.

 

·         BRAND PERCEPTION: What customers believe a product or service represents, not what the company owning the brand says it does. Brand perception comes from customer use, experience, functionality, reputation and word of mouth recommendation - on social media channels as well as face to face.

 

·         BRAND PERFORMANCE: Measure of a brand’s results against the goals initially set. It describes how well the product or service meets customers’ more functional needs, How well does the brand rate on objective assessments of quality? To what extent does the brand satisfy utilitarian, aesthetic, and economic customer needs and wants in the product or service category?

 

·         BRAND PERMISSION: The limits of customers’ willingness to accept a familiar brand name in new marketplace situations. Brand permission comes before creating extensions or a new offering and is the defining factor of business success.

 

·         BRAND PERSONALITY: It’s personification of a brand i.e. a set of human characteristics that are attributed to a brand name and something to which the consumer can relate to and when we define our brand personality, we give people a reason to choose us.

 

·         BRAND PERSONIFICATION: Projective technique that tests the brands and considers these brands as a people, this test go through asking people how they imagine the brands if they could think or feel.

 

·         BRAND PHILOSOPHY: The set of values, code of ethics, and principles that define the overall ambiance and culture of the organization and formulating the business practices of the firm.

·         BRAND PHYSIQUE: The physical characteristics of a brand - that is, everything the customers can visually perceive about the brand e.g. logo, style guide, iconography, color palette, and the presentation of the product itself all go into this category.

 

·         BRAND PORTFOLIO: Collection of distinct  brands operating under one larger corporate umbrella. While each of these brands maintains its own operational structure, they benefit from shared resources and cross-promotional opportunities with other brands in the portfolio.

 

·         BRAND POSITIONING: The act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. In other words, brand positioning describes how a brand is different from its competitors and where, or how, it sits in customers’ minds.

 

·         BRAND POWER: Transforms a plain product into an economic entity worth many times more than its content. 

 

·         BRAND PRESTIGE: The level of exclusivity of a brand that enables consumers to satisfy their self-enhancement needs OR an expression of evaluative judgment that conveys high or low status, which depends on life experiences, knowledge and an awareness of competing brands.

 

·         BRAND PROFILE: The systematic process of creating, developing and implementing  brand character and personality through shaping its brand promise, values, the do's and don'ts of its behaviors, story, emotional benefits, its culture and what it stands for.

 

 

·         BRAND PROLIFERATION: Making available an extensive number of similar brands in a market reflecting the market segmentation policies of a manufacturer / supplier and the need to offer a comprehensive range of brands to compete against the rivals OR an increase in the number of brands of a particular product, each additional brand being very similar to those already available in the market.

 

·         BRAND PROMINANCE: It describes the conspicuousness of a brand on a product OR the extents to which a product has visible markings that help ensure observers recognize the brand.

 

·         BRAND PROMISE: An extension of a company’s positioning. A value or experience a company's customers can expect to receive every single time they interact with that company. Brand promise provides a powerful and appealing platform for the narrative in which core elements of the company i.e. corporate strategy, mission, vision, and values can be explained, embedded, and actualized. 

 

 

·         BRAND PROMOTION: Ways to inform, remind, persuade convincingly, and influence the consumers to drive their decision towards purchasing the product or service under a brand.  It also focuses on building a loyal and long-term customer base.

 

·         BRAND PROPOSITION: Statement which identifies the benefits that a consumer derives out of a brand OR the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) which includes benefits that no other brand can provide.

 

·         BRAND PROTECTION: Preventing unauthorized use of the brand and preventing any activity which could harm the brand's reputation OR the process of protecting the intellectual property (IP) of companies and their associated brands against counterfeiters, copyright pirates, and infringers of other types of IP, such as patents, design rights, color mark and trade dress i.e. visual or sensual appearance of a product that may also include its packaging, shape, combination of colors.

 

·         BRAND PURPOSE: An intrinsic motivator that drives values, gives direction, and fuels energy from within and greatly impacts the lives of the customers, employees, and the community as a whole. It’s the reason behind everything a business does: why it makes a product  what it does with the profits, how it communicates with the world and its  customers, and the commitment it has to a particular cause.

 

·         BRAND QUALITY: Recognition of the product quality which has an influence on consumer’s purchasing behavior. It’s the perception of quality that a brand achieves with its customers i.e. meeting the expectations of customers. 

 

 

·         BRAND RE-BRANDING: A marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors, competitors, and other stakeholders. Often, this involves radical changes to a brand's logo, name, legal names, image, marketing strategy, and advertising themes. Such changes typically aim to reposition the brand/company, occasionally to distance itself from negative connotations of the previous branding, or to move the brand up market.  

 

·         BRAND RECALL: Consumer’s ability to rightly generate a brand from memory when prompted by a product category. Brand recall is affected by both individual and product factors including; brand loyalty, brand knowledge, situational and usage factors, and education level.

 

·         BRAND RECOGNITION: It’s the ability of consumers to confirm that they have seen or heard of a given brand name before and the consumers can recognize the brand upon presentation, either at the point-of-sale or after viewing its visual packaging OR a qualitative measure of the consumer’s ability to remember the name of a brand.

 

·         BRAND REFLECTION: Framework that helps in understanding and communicating the brand identity more effectively and useful for branding and marketing agencies to understand and research into a client’s brand. Everyone involved with the brand shares the same views and underlying assumptions about the brand, however often there are key differences that can lead to misunderstanding and disagreements over strategy and inconsistent communication. Likewise, the gap between how customers perceive a brand and how the brand owner sees it can sometimes be poorly understood. Brand Reflections framework helps in understanding these differences to gain consistency and alignment around a brand’s key characteristics.

 

·        BRAND RESONANCE: Relationship a consumer has with the brand and how well he can relate to it.

 

·       BRAND SALIENCE: Degree, by which, a brand is thought of or noticed by consumers when they make a purchase decision. Typically, strong brands have higher brand salience, whereas weak brands have little or none.

 

·     BRAND STATEMENT: Concise summary of what the company does to make the people understand the company and its mission, goals, values, promise, character and how the company is different from other companies providing similar product or services.

 

·         BRAND STORY: More than content and a narrative, it goes beyond what’s written in the copy on a website, the text in a brochure or the presentation used to pitch to investors or customers, a complete picture made up of facts, feelings and interpretations inspiring an emotional reaction.

 

·     BRAND STRATEGY: Long-term plan for development of a brand successfully, in order to create a particular image in the minds of existing and potential customers. 

 

·    BRAND VALUE: The financial worth of a brand as stated in the balance sheet of a company.

 

·         BRAND VOICE: The consistent expression of a brand’s core messages, values, and personality through the purposeful use of words and prose styles. It is the linguistic representation of all the individual elements that make up the brand and manage how that brand is perceived by the consumers who are aware of or interact with the brand and its products in any way.

 

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