Talk Like a Pro: The Brand Glossary
Have you ever tried to talk shop with a brand strategist or designer and it ended up sounding like simlish instead of English? There are a lot of industry terms used in the world of branding that aren’t exactly self-explanatory. Here’s a list of common words to get familiar with while building your business. Get the hang of these and you’ll be talking like a pro!
The Glossary
Brand: A company’s reputation/what it’s known for among its customers and the market.
Branding: The intentional actions a company takes to leave their signature on a space, moment, or interaction, thereby building a specific reputation.
Brand Strategy: A company’s vision and plan for building the kind of reputation they want.
Copy: Any type of written content used to inform consumers about a company and its offerings (think: website messaging, social media captions & content, ads, etc.)
Mission: What a company aims to accomplish in their day to day work.
Positioning: The (ideally unique) space a company has carved out for itself in its industry.
Tone: The attitude or inflection applied to a company’s voice specifically in written/spoken communications. It adjusts to the context, message, and receiver.
Unique Value Proposition: An articulation of the unique benefits and value that a company’s offerings provide its target audience. It highlights what’s most compelling to consumers.
Unique Selling Proposition: A subset of the Unique Value Proposition; calls out what specifically makes a company’s offerings stand out from competitors. It highlights what the company does differently and best.
Vision: The impact or result a company wants to have if they are successful in their mission.
Visual Identity: The system of brand marks, color palette, fonts, accents, graphic styles, and imagery styles that a company uses consistently to identify themselves.
Voice: The belief systems and personality traits that determine how a company behaves and thinks. It is consistent and relatively unchanging.
Want to learn how to build a brand?
Start with Brand Strategy 101, our introductory course to creating solid brand strategies that lead to industry success.
