Guide to brand terminology

Audience, Target Market & Ideal Customer (ICP)

Three terms people often use interchangeably — but they're not quite the same thing.

Target market is the broadest of the three. It's the overall segment of the market you're going after, usually defined by demographics, industry, geography or buying behaviour. It's a commercial term as much as a brand one. eg. SMEs in professional services.

Audience sits within that. It's who you're actually talking to and trying to resonate with — defined less by data and more by mindset, motivations and what they care about. You can share a target market with a competitor and still have a very different audience if you're speaking to different values or needs within it.

Ideal customer or ICP (Ideal Customer Profile — a term that crept in from the tech and startup world) is the sharpest point of the arrow. Not just who you're targeting or talking to, but the specific type of person or business where you do your best work and they get the most value from you.

Think of them as nested. Target market is the widest circle. Audience sits inside it. Ideal customer is the bullseye.

What none of them are: Everyone. If your brand is for everyone, it's for no one.

Brand

The associations people make when they think of your business, service or product. These associations are intuitive and emotional — not logical. You can’t control what people associate with your brand, but you can influence it via all areas of your business including your behaviour and offering, your design and your messaging.

What it’s not: Your logo. That’s a symbol representing your brand — a visual shortcut, not the whole picture.

Brand Architecture

How a business organises and names its brands, products or services. And how they relate to each other. It determines whether everything sits under one master brand, operates as separate standalone brands, or something in between. Get it right and each brand can do its job without stepping on the others.

eg. Unilever owns Dove, Persil and Ben & Jerry's - each is a standalone brand with no visible connection to the parent.

What it's not: Just a naming exercise. Architecture is a strategic decision that affects positioning, investment, and growth.

Brand Assets

Recognisable elements that trigger associations with your brand. Includes your logo, colour, graphics, sounds, name, characters, and shapes.
eg. KFC’s iconic Colonel Sanders

Brand Consistency

Showing up the same way across every touchpoint, every time. Same visual identity, same tone of voice, same values in action — whether someone finds you on Instagram, reads your proposal or walks into your office.

Consistency builds trust. It signals that you know who you are. Inconsistency — even subtle inconsistency — creates doubt.

What it's not: Rigidity. Consistency doesn't mean every piece of communication looks identical. It means everything feels like it comes from the same place.

Brand Equity

The value a brand holds in people's minds — above and beyond the product or service itself. It's built over time through consistent experience, reputation and emotional association. High brand equity means people choose you over a competitor even when the alternatives are comparable, and it often means you can charge more too.
eg. Coca-Cola and an own-brand cola contain similar ingredients. The price difference is almost entirely brand equity.

What it's not: A financial asset on a balance sheet — although in large businesses it can be valued as one. Brand equity lives in perception, not spreadsheets.

Brand Narrative / Brand Story

The thread that runs through everything your brand says and does. Not a history of your business — a coherent story about why you exist, who you serve and what you stand for. It gives your communications direction and makes your brand feel consistent and human.

Brand Strategy

A plan to guide and develop your brand so it aligns with your business goals. It defines your purpose, vision, values, personality and positioning — and sets the foundations for everything from messaging to customer experience.

Brand strategy is the thinking. How your brand looks and sounds comes from it — not the other way around. Much of it is internal facing — it shapes your culture, your decisions, your priorities. Positioning is the most externally focused component, where that internal thinking meets the market.
eg. Patagonia's purpose is saving the planet. IKEA's mission is making good design affordable for everyone. Dove's is about real beauty and women's self esteem. You can't see their full strategy documents — but you can see those strategies at work in everything they do.

What it's not: A logo, a set of guidelines, or a one-page document ticked off and forgotten. Strategy is only useful if it actually guides decisions.

Differentiation

The art of standing out from your competition. Differentiation is about clearly communicating what makes your brand distinct — not just in what you do, but in how you do it and why. In B2B markets especially, true uniqueness is rare, so many businesses aim for a clear distinction: a noticeable and meaningful point of difference that positions them effectively in the mind of their ideal customer.

Guidelines

A document that shows how to correctly use your brand assets - logo, colours, fonts, photography, illustrations, tone of voice. Useful internally or for agencies and partners, it helps ensure the consistency of how your brand appears and sounds, achieving more clarity and impact.

Mission

Your day-to-day focus. A mission gives your team clarity on what success looks like today and tomorrow.
eg. Google's original mission: "Organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Personality

The set of human characteristics that describe how your brand behaves and communicates. It influences everything from tone of voice to customer experience.
eg. Innocent Drinks — friendly, informal, playful. Every touchpoint, from their bottles to their social media, reflects it.

Playbook

An engaging description of your brand - often includes many aspects of brand strategy but also behaviours and attitudes of the business. Great for onboarding teams or sharing with partners.

Positioning

A strategic decision about how you want to be perceived in your customer’s mind — especially in relation to competitors. A clear positioning helps you stand out in a crowded market and attract the right people.

There are many ways to position a brand. Here are some:

Competitive — you define yourself in relation to a rival. You're the challenger, the alternative, the antidote. eg. Oatly vs dairy.
Value/price — you own a place on the quality and cost spectrum and you're unapologetic about it. eg. Ryanair at one end, Rolls Royce at the other.
Category — you define or own an entire category rather than just competing within it. eg. Salesforce didn't just sell CRM software, they defined cloud CRM.
Values/purpose — you stand for something, and that belief attracts the right people and repels the wrong ones. eg. Patagonia — outdoor gear for people who care about the planet.
Method or approach — how you do what you do is the differentiator. Not just what you deliver, but how you work, how you think, or how you make things.

What it's not: A tagline. Positioning is the strategic thinking. The tagline might express it, but it isn't it.

eg. Volvo has historically owned ‘safety’. Not because no other car is safe — but because they positioned around it first and backed it up consistently.

Promise

A commitment your brand makes to its customer. It’s the experience or outcome they can reliably expect every time they interact with you. It's not a tagline or a marketing line. It's the standard you hold yourself to, consistently.

A strong promise is specific enough to be meaningful and realistic enough to actually deliver.

eg. FedEx built its entire brand on one promise: your package will be there overnight.

What it's not: A slogan. A promise should influence how your whole business operates, not just what you put on your website.

Purpose

The reason your brand exists beyond making money. It’s the bigger picture — the impact you want to make. That might mean tackling global challenges or simply making everyday life a little better. A strong purpose provides internal clarity and guides strategic decisions.

It doesn't have to mean solving global challenges. Purpose can be as grand or as grounded as your business genuinely is — as long as it's real and lived, not just written on a wall.

eg. Patagonia exists to save the planet. That shapes their materials, their pricing, their activism — everything. At the other end of the scale, Timpson's purpose is simply to put people first. In practice that means hiring ex-offenders and giving people a second chance, but it also shows up in something as everyday as how a manager speaks to a colleague on a Monday morning.

Reasons to Believe (RTBs)

The evidence that backs up your positioning or claims. Facts, credentials, client results, accreditations — proof points that make your positioning credible rather than just claimed

What it's not: Marketing fluff. RTBs only work if they're real and specific.

Slogan (or tagline)

A short, memorable phrase that sums up your brand’s essence. Get it right and it will be recognisable even when seen or heard separately from your name or logo.
eg. Nike – “Just do it.”
eg. Tesco - “Every little helps”

Tone of voice

How your brand expresses its personality through language — written and spoken ie it’s not just what you say, but how you say it.

Touchpoints

Every moment a customer or potential customer interacts with your brand. Your website, your social media, how the phone gets answered, your email signature, your packaging, your invoices, the way a meeting is run. All of it.

Touchpoints matter because brand is built — or eroded — across all of them, not just the ones you think of as marketing.

What it's not: Just your designed assets. Some of the most powerful touchpoints are the ones businesses never think to consider.

Value proposition

A clear statement that explains the core value your product or service delivers - the problem you solve and why that matters to your customers.

Values

The principles and beliefs that drive your decisions and behaviour. Values shape your culture, influence your tone, and help customers connect with what you stand for.
eg. Lego – Imagination, Creativity, Fun, Learning, Caring, Quality.

Vision

Where you're going and the impact your brand aims to have. The guiding light for long-term decisions and direction.
eg. Microsoft's early vision: "A computer on every desk and in every home." Bold, clear, and it drove everything they did.

Visual identity

The visible face of your brand: logo, colour palette, fonts, icons, layouts, imagery and more. It’s what people see — and should consistently reflect your positioning and personality.

What it's not: Your brand. Visual identity is one part of it — an important part, but not the whole thing.

Final Thought

You don’t need to memorise every term — and you don’t need every one of these defined and documented like a checklist. The goal isn’t to tick boxes, it’s to bring clarity and cohesion to your brand.

A handful of well-thought-through elements, lived and breathed consistently, will always beat a bloated strategy deck that sits in a folder.

When you understand what each piece does — strategy, identity, personality, voice — you can make smarter decisions, brief creatives more clearly, and stay consistent across every touchpoint.