Branding Glossary( A - H) Part 1

A.    Awareness The percentage of population or target market who are aware of the existence of a given brand or company. There are two types of awareness: spontaneous, which measures the percentage of people who spontaneously mention a particular brand when asked to name brands in a certain category; and prompted, which measures the percentage of people who recognise a brand from a particular category when shown a list.

B.    Brand A brand is a mixture of attributes, tangible and intangible, symbolised in a trademark, which, if managed properly, creates value and influence.

“Value” has different interpretations: from a marketing or consumer perspective it is “the promise and delivery of an experience”; from a business perspective it is “the security of future earnings”; from a legal perspective it is “a separable piece of intellectual property.” Brands offer customers a means to choose and enable recognition within cluttered markets.

Brand Architecture How an organization structures and names the brands within its portfolio. There are three main types of brand architecture system: monolithic, where the corporate name is used on all products and services offered by the company; endorsed, where all sub-brands are linked to the corporate brand by means of either a verbal or visual endorsement; and freestanding, where the corporate brand operates merely as a holding company, and each product or service is individually branded for its target market.

Brand Associations The feelings, beliefs and knowledge that consumers (customers) have about brands. These associations are derived as a result of experiences and must be consistent with the brand positioning and the basis of differentiation.

Brand Commitment The degree to which a customer is committed to a given brand in that they are likely to re-purchase/re-use in the future. The level of commitment indicates the degree to which a brand’s customer franchise is protected form competitors.

Brand Earnings The share of a brand-owning business’s cashflow that can be attributed to the brand alone.

Brand Equity The sum of all distinguishing qualities of a brand, drawn from all relevant stakeholders, that results in personal commitment to and demand for the brand; these differentiating thoughts and feelings make the brand valued and valuable.

Brand Essence The brand’s promise expressed in the simplest, most single-minded terms. For example, Volvo = safety; AA = Fourth Emergency Service. The most powerful brand essences are rooted in a fundamental customer need. Also, in Interbrand’s model, a vivid distillation of the Brand Platform.

Brand Experience The means by which a brand is created in the mind of a stakeholder. Some experiences are controlled such as retail environments, advertising, products/services, websites, etc. Some are uncontrolled like journalistic comment and word of mouth. Strong brands arise from consistent experiences which combine to form a clear, differentiated overall brand experience.

Brand Extension Leveraging the values of the brand to take the brand into new markets/sectors.

Brand Harmonisation Ensuring that all products in a particular brand range have a consistent name, visual identity and, ideally, positioning across a number of geographic or product/service markets.

Brand Identity: The outward expression of the brand, including its name and visual appearance. The brand’s identity is its fundamental means of consumer recognition and symbolizes the brand’s differentiation from competitors.

Brand Image: The customer’s net “out-take” from the brand. For users this is based on practical experience of the product or service concerned (informed impressions) and how well this meets expectations; for non-users it is based almost entirely upon uninformed impressions, attitudes and beliefs.

Brand Licensing: The leasing by a brand owner of the use of a brand to another company. Usually a licensing fee or royalty rate will be agreed for the use of the brand.

Brand Management Practically this involves managing the tangible and intangible aspects of the brand. For product brands the tangibles are the product itself, the packaging, the price, etc. For service brands (see Service Brands), the tangibles are to do with the customer experience - the retail environment, interface with salespeople, overall satisfaction, etc. For product, service and corporate brands, the intangibles are the same and refer to the emotional connections derived as a result of experience, identity, communication and people. Intangibles are therefore managed via the manipulation of identity, communication and people skills.

Brand Parity: A measure of how similar, or different, different brands in the same category are perceived to be. Brand parity varies widely from one category to another. It is high for petrol, for example: about 80% of respondents (BBDO survey) see no real difference between brands. By contrast, brand parity for cars is low: only about 25% of respondents say that one make is much the same as another.

Brand Personality The attribution of human personality traits (seriousness, warmth, imagination, etc.) to a brand as a way to achieve differentiation. Usually done through long-term above-the-line advertising and appropriate packaging and graphics. These traits inform brand behavior through both prepared communication/packaging, etc., and through the people who represent the brand - its employees.

Brand Platform Interbrand’s proprietary model for defining brands. The Brand Platform consists of the following elements:

•       Brand Vision The brand’s guiding insight into its world.

•       Brand Mission How the brand will act on its insight.

•       Brand Values The code by which the brand lives. The brand values act as a benchmark to measure behaviors and performance.

•       Brand Personality The brand’s personality traits (See also definition for Brand Personality).

•       Brand Tone of Voice How the brand speaks to its audiences.

Brand Positioning The distinctive position that a brand adopts in its competitive environment to ensure that individuals in its target market can tell the brand apart from others. Positioning involves the careful manipulation of every element of the marketing mix.

Brand Strategy A plan for the systematic development of a brand to enable it to meet its agreed objectives. The strategy should be rooted in the brand’s vision and driven by the principles of differentiation and sustained consumer appeal. The brand strategy should influence the total operation of a business to ensure consistent brand behaviors and brand experiences.

Brand Valuation The process of identifying and measuring the economic benefit - brand value – that derives from brand ownership.

Brand Values The code by which the brand lives. The brand values act as a benchmark to measure behaviors and perfor-mance. (See also Brand Platform.)

C.    Co-branding The use of two or more brand names in support of a new product, service or venture.

Consumer Product Goods (consumer goods) or services (consumer services) purchased for private use or for other members of the household.

Core Competencies Relates to a company’s particular areas of skill and competence that best contribute to its ability to compete.

Corporate Identity At a minimum, is used to refer to the visual identity of a corporation (its logo, signage, etc.), but usually taken to mean an organization’s presentation to its stakeholders and the means by which it differentiates itself from other organizations.

Country of Origin The country from which a given product comes. Customers’ attitudes to a product and their willingness to buy it tend to be heavily influenced by what they associate with the place where it was designed and manufactured.

Customer Characteristics All distinguishing, distinctive, typical or peculiar characteristics and circumstances or customers that can be used in market segmentation to tell one group of customers from another.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tracking customer behavior for the purpose of developing marketing and relationship-building processes that bond the consumer to the brand. Developing software or systems to provide one-to-one customer service and personal contact between the company and the customer.

Customer Service The way in which the brand meets its customers’ needs via its various different channels (for example, over the telephone or Internet in the case of remote banking, or in person in the case of retail or entertainment).

D      Demographics The description of outward traits that characterize a group of people, such as age, sex, nationality, marital status, education, occupation or income. Decisions on market segmentation are often based on demographic data.

Differential Product Advantage A feature of a product that is valuable to customers and is not found in other products of the same category.

Differentiation Creation or demonstration of unique characteristics in a company’s products or brands compared to those of its competitors.

Differentiator Any tangible or intangible characteristic that can be used to distinguish a product or a company from other products and companies.

E       Endorsed brand (See Brand Architecture.) Generally a product or service brand name that is supported by a masterbrand - either dominantly e.g. Tesco Metro or lightly e.g. Nestle Kit-Kat.

F       FMCG Fast moving consumer goods. An expression used to describe frequently purchased consumer items, such as foods, cleaning products and toiletries.

Focus Group A qualitative research technique in which a group of about eight people is invited to a neutral venue to discuss a given subject, for example hand-held power tools.

The principle is the same as an in-depth interview, except that group dynamics help to make the discussion livelier and more wide-ranging. Qualitative groups enable the researcher to probe deeper into specific areas of interest (for example, the nature of commitment to a brand). The result adds richer texture to the understanding of broader data (for example, quantitative), which may paint general trends or observations. Also known as a group discussion.

Freestanding Brand (See Brand Architecture.) A brand name and identity used for a single product or service in a portfolio, which is unrelated to the names and identities of other products in the company’s portfolio.

Functionality What a product does for the buyer and user; the utility it offers the user; what he or she can do with it.

G      Goods A product consisting predominantly of tangible values. Almost all goods, however, have intangible values to a greater or lesser extent.

H      High Technology (high tech) A term with vague and far-reaching meaning. This covers electronics, data technology, telecommunications, medical technology and bio-chemistry. In order to be classed as a high tech company, one definition is that at least 35 percent of staff should have a technical qualification, and at least 15 percent of sales should be used for R&D. Another definition states that the company must employ twice as many scientists and engineers and invest twice as much in R&D as the average of all manufacturing companies in the country.