Category: Branding Definitions

  • What is Direct Response Marketing?

    What is Direct Response Marketing?

    Direct Response Marketing is advertising and other communications designed to prompt an action (usually a purchase) with a call to action.

  • What is Brand Marketing?

    What is Brand Marketing?

    Brand marketing is an approach to communications, sales, products, and services that grows the asset of brand equity. This post was originally published on May 12, 2018 and was significantly rewritten on June 10, 2023. Starting a business or a career in marketing can be both exciting and daunting. One of the challenges is understanding…

  • What does Toyetic mean?

    What does Toyetic mean?

    one that could easily be made into a marketable toy. A character, object, or vehicle with a manufacturable shape and kids want to play with. Toyetic things can come from movies, cartoons, shows, books, comic books, and video games.

  • Brand Architecture

    Brand Architecture

    Brand Architecture is how businesses organize their offerings into brands for the customers. This article dives into examples from Coca-Cola and Honda.

  • Brand Priming

    Brand Priming

    The power of brands can seem mysterious; why does the mention Nike have so much more influence than a lesser-known brand? How do we manage our brands to have that power? I wonder that all the time, and you may too. One of the reasons branding works is because of brand priming. Pairing the brand…

  • What is Brand Equity?

    What is Brand Equity?

    Brand Equity: the portion a company’s value attributable to its brand(s). I have always been interested in why some brands are loved so much that they have a cult following, like Apple, and why people are willing to trade a small fortune to be part of a brand, like Ferrari. These brands are so awesome because…

  • What is Visual Language?

    What is Visual Language?

    Designers and brand managers are told that a consistency of design is important for the brand they are working with. But do we really know what this means? Or why it’s a good thing? Prior to my work in brand strategy, I was an industrial designer for 11 years. I have worked with brands that…

  • What does Brand Safety mean?

    What does Brand Safety mean?

    If you pay to advertise your brand, then you are trying to make it easier for your brand to sell products in the future. What if your display ads ended up doing the opposite? What if it became harder to sell after you paid money to advertise? That would be tragic, but it does happen.…

  • What are Table Stakes in Business?

    What are Table Stakes in Business?

    Have you ever heard your colleague or a business pundit, like Jason Calacanis, use the term “table stakes” and wondered what they meant? I researched it, and have the answer for you. Table stakes highlight an essential concept in branding: meeting minimum customer expectations.

  • What is a Veblen Good?

    What is a Veblen Good?

    Diamonds and Ferrari’s. Goods and brands that cannot seem to charge enough to lower demand. I was taught the law of demand when I went took economics at Carleton University. If something can be made cheaper, then people will buy more of it. If the price is raised, then people buy less. But some brands…