A few years back I hopped off the marketing career path to pursue landscape architecture, and in my absence this thing called branding emerged. Advertising and marketing agencies were suddenly branding firms, and designers were brand image consultants. As I reentered the fold, my attempt to understand what branding was all about was hampered by the realization that everyone had different ideas.

Below are some definitions from The Dictionary of Brand that might prove helpful for you as a church leader trying to understand the concept of branding. The Dictionary of Brand by Marty Neumeier, published by AIGA, www.aiga.org is a great place to start. As Neumeier writes;

“Today we find ourselves in the position of the six blind men of Hindustan, unable to describe an elephant except through our separate specialties. The brand is the product, says the product manager. It’s the company’s reputation, says the PR consultant. The brand is the tagline, says the copywriter. No—it’s the visual identity, says the graphic designer. Our brand is our culture, says the CEO. The brand surely derives from functionality, says the engineer. Like the blind men of Hindustan, all of us are partly right, and all of us are wrong.”

Audience: the group to which a product, service, or message is aimed; also called the target audience

Authenticity: the quality of being genuine, often considered a powerful brand attribute

Benefit: a perceived advantage derived from a product, service, feature or attribute

Brand: a person’s perception of a product, service, experience or organization; the art and science of branding

Brand Alignment: the practice of linking brand strategy to customer touchpoints.

Brand Designer: any person who helps shape a brand, including graphic designers, strategists, marketing directors, researchers, advertising planners, web developers, public relations specialists, copywriters and others

Brand Essence: the distillation of a brand’s promise into the simplest terms

Brand Experience: all the interactions people have with a product, service, or organization; the raw material of a brand

Brand Identity: the outward expression of a brand, including its name, trademark, communications, and visual appearance

Brand Image: a customer’s mental picture of a product, service, or organization

Branding: any effort or program to build a brand; the process of brand building

Brandmark: an icon, avatar, wordmark, or other symbol for a brand; a trademark

Conceptual Noise: cognitive clutter arising from too many message or meanings; any competing ideas that undermine clarity

Corporate Identity: the brand identity of a company, consisting of its visual identifiers such as the name, trademark, typography and colors; a companies trade dress

Differentiation: the process of establishing a unique marketing position to increase profit margins and avoid commoditization; the result of positioning

Emergent Attribute: a feature, benefit, quality, or experience that arises form the brand, as opposed to the core product or service; an example if the friendliness of Google

Emotional Branding: brand building efforts that aim at customers’ feelings through sensory experiences

Feature: any element of a product, service, or experience designed to deliver a benefit

Futurecasting: a technique used to envision future products, industries, competitors, challenges, or opportunities; a combination of forecasting and imagination

Guerilla Marketing: a marketing program that uses non-traditional channels to advertise products or services

Icon: the visual symbol of a brand, usually based on a differentiated market position; a trademark

Logo: an abbreviation of logotype, now applied broadly (if incorrectly) to all trademarks

Logotype: a distinctive typeface or lettering style used to represent a brand name; a wordmark

Marketing: the process of developing, promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service

Media: the channels through which brand messages are delivered, such as television, printed publications, direct mail, the Internet, and outdoor posters

Mission Statement: a concise statement of the purpose or aspirations of the organization

Opinion Leader: a person whose opinion or personality exerts an influence over other members of a group; also called an opinion maker

Permanent Media: environmental brand messages that last for years, such as signage or architecture

Permission Marketing: the practice of promoting goods or services with anticipated, personal, and relevant messages

Positioning: the process of differentiating a product, service, or company in a customer’s mind to obtain a strategic competitive advantage; the first step in building a brand

Promise: a stated or implied pledge that creates customer expectations and employee responsibilities, such as Fed Ex’s on-time guarantee

Pure Play: a company with a single line of business; a highly focused brand

Reach: the number of people exposed to an advertising or brand message

Reputation: the shared opinion of a product, service, or organization among all the members of its audience

Segment: a group of people who are likely to respond to a given marketing effort in a similar way

Segmentation: the process of dividing a market into subcategories of people who share similar values and goals

Silo: a department separated from other departments according to product, service, function, or market; a disparaging term for a non-collaborative department

Slogan: a catchphrase, tagline, or rally cry

Symbol: a sign or trademark designed to represent a brand

Trademark: a name and/or symbol that indicates a source of goods or services and prevents confusion in the marketplace; a legally protectable form of intellectual property

Value Proposition: a set of benefits, including functional, emotional, and self-expressive benefits

Wordmark: the brand name as represented by a distinctive typeface or lettering style; a logotype