• 6 min read

🔥 Brand jargon in my own words

Today I'm fast forwarding through the 15 years it took me to learn all the things we say in brand strategy land and giving you the TL;DR on my most used, because why not?

I've been teasing these out through my posts (like this one) but you get them all here first.

Brand Activation: Putting your brand into the wild through campaigns and experiences, or the brand's first yawn at life through a startup launch.

Brand Affinity: Brand bestie status, where customers believe a brand shares common values with them. This emotional connection can lead to cult-like fandom and a feeling of self-identity through the brand. Harley Davidson nailed this.

Brand Architecture: The structure of brands within an organization that shows the relationships between the parent brand, sub-brands, and all other brands within the portfolio. (Two examples: FedEx is a Branded House which means all sub brands are led by the parent name - FedEx Ground, FedEx Express, etc. Uniliver is a House of Brands meaning most people don't know about the parent brand, only the subs - Dove, Hellmann's, etc.)

Brand Archetype: A character type that embodies essential elements of universal” human experience. Archetypes include 12 sets of universally relatable characteristics (based off Carl Jung's) that help people relate to brands on a human level. Read this if you wanna match my freak. NIKE is a hero, Dove is a Caregiver, Jeep is an Explorer, Virgin is an Outlaw... get the gist?

Brand Awareness: Measured by things like Recognition (do they know the brand when they see it?) and Recall (can they remember the brand without a visual cue?) it's the extent to which people have memories or perceptions about a brand by looking at or thinking about it.

Brand Equity: The value a brand adds to a product or service. The value is set by how much MORE customers are willing to pay for the brand compared to an unbranded version (think NIKE vs. Gildan).

Brand Experience: The sum of all sensations, feelings, thoughts, and actions evoked by a brand interaction. It is influenced by elements like identity, packaging, product quality, digital interactions, campaigns, collabs, and employee behavior.

Brand Extension: Leveraging the brand equity of an existing brand name to introduce a new product or service into a different category (like Apple using its name to introduce iPods, Disney launching a cruise line, Nike launching Nike+).

Brand Identity: The visible parts of a brand: color, typeface, logo, patterns, icons that impact psychological processes in perception, cognition, and emotional response. In other words, the visual elements you see that train your brain to recall the brand.

Brand Image: The customer's net extract from the brand. How the brand is currently perceived, which may not always reflect the brand's identity or intentions. (this is where UGC, press, and other 3rd party media comes in).

Brand Loyalty: The tendency of consumers to continuously purchase one brand’s products over others without re-evaluation of features or benefits. A good goal for driving lifetime value of customers (LTV).

Brand Management: The process of designing, launching, and maintaining/growing a brand so that the name is associated with intended results.

Brand Personality: Attributes associated with a brand which give it a distinct character, analogous to a human personality, such as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. (We use Jennifer Aaker's personality model at Backroom.)

Brand Positioning: The process of positioning your brand in the mind of your customers. It defines your market category, unique differentiator, audience, problem solved, and key benefit. All messaging and campaigns should tie back to this positioning.

Brand Promise: What your brand promises to do, each and every time. (GEICO promises to save you 15% or more, Southwest promises the most value served with love, BMW promises the most efficient and elegant "driving machines").

Brand Strategy: Literally what you want the brand to be known for and how it should perform, along with the plan to get there. It should have a clearly defined long term goal with a GTM roadmap outlining for whom and the details for how.

Brand Valuation: The process of estimating the total financial value of a brand. This includes market share, ARR, EBIDTA, perceived value, brand equity, and the overall impact of the brand's presence in the market.

Brand Values: The ethos that guides the behavior, actions, and communications of a brand, both internally and externally - beyond great customer service and integrity (yawn). LEGO values creativity and creation, Dove values realistic beauty standards, Apple values challenging the status quo, even if you look crazy.

Brand Voice: The distinct personality a brand takes on in its communications. This can include the actual words chosen as well as the tone conveyed, whether authoritative, playful, intellectual, or friendly.

Co-branding: A marketing partnership between at least two different brands of goods or services. This strategy utilizes multiple brand names on a single product or service. This work we did for Audi & DC United is an example.

Differentiation: The process of distinguishing a product or service from others, to make it more attractive to a specific target market.

Rebranding: The process of changing the corporate image of an organization. It is a market strategy of giving a new name, symbol, or change in design for an already-established brand.

Visual Identity: The visual elements of a brand, such as color, design, logos, photography, typography, and other visual components, that act as the face of a brand to communicate those intangible qualities through images, shapes, and color.

January Brand Insider Events

Events are FREE for Brand Insiders Club Members! Not in? Join here.

📆 From Corporate to Skincare: My Career Glow-Up

January 14, 3pm ET
Speaker: Tara Fox

If you've hustled to climb the corporate ladder and found yourself disappointed and burned out at the top, you're not alone. Join us for a candid conversation with Tara Fox, former corporate finance marketer turned aesthetician, about how she quit the corporate grind to do the work she actually loves, and rediscovered herself in the process. 

📆 Building a Personal Brand

January 17, 4pm ET
Speaker: Brianna Doe

Brianna Doe of Verbatim & current LinkedIn creator with over 240,000 followers will be teaching us the fundamentals of building and monetizing a personal brand.  

📆 AI Essentials

January 23, 4pm ET
Speaker: Mark Briggs

This workshop is for people who want to use AI to get more done but haven't had the time or help to learn what's out there. Learn how to apply new generative AI-powered tools to real-world practices, build your personal AI toolkit, and improve workflows.

What to know this week

♪ Um, bye TikTok maybe? If you didn't follow along the Supreme Court has been hearing the case and it's not looking good. Do you have a prediction?

📱 According to Vogue Business, over 50% of brands plan to increase budget spend on creators (study by LTK and Northwestern University here) Want to get in before the craze? Join the waitlist for my LinkedIn Cohort or get My LinkedIn Playbook.)

♾️ Just in time for January 6 🫠 Meta has announced it is ENDING its fact checking on the platform https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meta-facebook-instagram-fact-checking-mark-zuckerberg/

😀 Notion app JUST launched notion faces and their creator campaign is so cute, check out Brianna Doe, Zoë Hartsfield, and Bri Reynolds profile makeovers

🌱 The 2025 Sprout Social Index is here and I read it so you don't have to:

  • Keeping up with culture: fluency in online culture is a must for social marketers in 2025. 93% of consumers across age groups say so.
  • Facebook is still king, weirdly enough
  • Quality products & distinct brand identities are the biggest indicators of strong following and engagement
  • COMMUNITY is taking the lead - this means listening, responding to customer care requests, and exploring together vs. teaching (73% of users said if a brand doesn't respond on social, they'll buy elsewhere)
  • Social is at the CORE of brand relevance: and you have to be platform-specific with your strategies

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