Branding Glossary: What We Actually Mean
Because branding doesn’t need another dictionary written by people who’ve never run a business. This one’s for the curious, the skeptical, and the decision-makers who just want clear terms for big decisions.
BRAND AUDIT & CUSTOMER RESEARCH
What is a brand audit?
A strategic pulse check. Looks at how the brand is showing up now, internally, externally, and emotionally, before deciding what to change.
What is a customer insight?
A truth about what people feel, want, or struggle with, not what they say in a survey. Great brands are built on these.
What are psychographics?
What people care about, not how old they are. Interests, attitudes, values, the deeper why behind decisions.
What is an identity review?
An honest look at your brand’s visual and verbal expression, logo, typography, colours, tone, and all the rest. Do they still fit? Do they still feel right? Are they helping or hindering recognition and resonance?
An identity review doesn’t mean throwing everything out. It means knowing what to keep, what to evolve, and what to finally let go of.
STRATEGY
What is brand strategy?
The long game. A clear plan for who the brand is for, what it stands for, and how it wins, not just in the market, but in culture. Everything else follows from this.
What is brand purpose?
Not a tagline. Not a CSR move. It’s the underlying reason the brand exists beyond making money, and it needs to be real enough to shape decisions.
What is positioning?
Where the brand sits in the minds of its audience, in relation to competitors, context, and cultural noise. A brand’s place to play and win.
What is a value proposition?
What makes the brand valuable to the people it’s built for. Clear, motivating, and often the first casualty in a templated deck.
What is brand architecture?
How multiple products, services, or sub-brands relate to one another, and to the mother ship. It’s your house. This is the blueprint.
IDENTITY & EXPRESSION
What is brand identity?
The full system, logo, colours, typography, voice, visual style, that makes a brand recognisable, memorable, and coherent. Not just a logo.
What is an identity system?
The full kit of parts that make a brand recognisable, logo, colours, type, voice, layout rules, imagery, iconography, and how they all work together.
It’s not just what things look like, but how they behave across every touchpoint.
A strong identity system flexes with consistency. It makes the brand feel whole, not templated. And when done right, it lets the brand show up clearly, everywhere from a billboard to a browser tab.
What is a logo?
A symbolic anchor. It’s the handshake, not the whole conversation.
What is typography?
How the brand looks in letters. Chosen with purpose, not just for style. Can signal as much as the words themselves.
What is visual language?
The sum of design choices, photography, layout, iconography, colour, illustration, that makes a brand distinct at a glance.
IMPLEMENTATION
What are brand guidelines?
A living manual. Not a rulebook to be filed and forgotten, but a practical reference for how the brand comes to life, day to day.
What is a touchpoint?
Any moment someone interacts with the brand, a poster, a product, a push notification. All of it matters.
What is rollout?
The launch or relaunch plan, internal first, then external. Often more complex (and crucial) than people expect.
What is content strategy?
How the brand communicates over time, across formats, channels, and moments, with a point of view, not just a calendar.
What is user experience (UX)?
How it feels to interact with the brand, especially online. Clear flows, logical journeys, human choices.
What is interface design (UI)?
The layer people see and click. Good UI brings the brand’s values into digital form, clearly, consistently, and beautifully.
BRAND-ADJACENT (BUT OFTEN CONFUSED)
What is marketing?
Gets attention. Branding builds meaning. You need both, but they’re not the same.
What is a campaign?
A time-bound push with a goal. Brands need campaigns, but campaigns don’t build brands alone.
What is advertising?
A paid invitation. Often louder than it needs to be when the brand underneath is unclear.
What is rebranding?
Not a new logo. A considered shift in strategy, story, identity, or all three, to better match the brand’s intent and context.
What is a brand refresh?
A tune-up, not a teardown. A brand refresh updates how a brand shows up, usually the visuals, voice, and messaging, without changing its core purpose or positioning.
It’s about sharpening relevance, not rewriting the story. Think, modernising the logo, refining the tone, tightening the identity system, or re-energising how people feel when they see you.
