Anyone else feeling a bit overwhelmed and tired by all the branding jargo? Between strategy decks and brand guidelines and the LinkedIn posts about ‘owning your narrative’, the whole thing has became a bit of a turn off to the exact people it’s supposed to help. Real people offering real services who just want to stop looking like everyone else and start feeling proud of what they put out into the world.
So here’s my little public service. A complete, definitive, entirely serious glossary of branding terminology, translated into what it actually means, for people who have better things to do than learn a new language just to invest in their own business.
You’re welcome!
Brand clarity
What it sounds like: A state of strategic enlightenment achieved after completing a sound bath at brand camp.
What it actually is: Finally being able to explain what the hell you do without your eyes going slightly unfocused.
You’ll know you have it when: Someone asks what you do at a networking event and you don’t briefly consider faking a phone call.
Unique value proposition
What it sounds like: A sentence you write at the top of a business plan that nobody reads.
What it actually is: The reason someone picks you over the seventeen other people who technically do the same thing.
You’ll know you have it when: A client says ‘I just knew it had to be you’ and you actually understand why.
Visual identity
What it sounds like: Logos. Fonts. A PDF nobody opens after the first week.
What it actually is: A visual world that actually feels like you. Not like a slightly optimistic version of you, not like what you thought you were supposed to look like, but genuinely, recognisably, unmistakably you.
You’ll know you have it when: You stop apologising before you send someone your website link.
Personal brand
What it sounds like: Something influencers have. Something that requires a ring light and a content calendar and a willingness to film yourself eating breakfast.
What it actually is: The impression you make when you’re not in the room. Which, inconveniently, is most of the time.
You’ll know you have it when: People describe you to other people accurately, without you having to brief them first.
Content strategy
What it sounds like: A spreadsheet. A posting schedule. A document that makes you feel organised for forty-eight hours and then guilty forever after.
What it actually is: Knowing what to post without spiralling. Having enough material that feels genuinely yours that you’re not staring at a blank caption box at 11pm wondering if you can get away with another reposted quote graphic.
You’ll know you have it when: You actually want to post something instead of feeling like you should.
Audience targeting
What it sounds like: Data. Demographics. A spreadsheet of people aged 28-45 with a household income of X who have expressed interest in Y.
What it actually is: The people who read your thing and immediately think oh, this is for me. The ones who share it without being asked. The ones who, when they find you, act like they’ve been looking for you specifically.
You’ll know you have it when: You stop trying to appeal to everyone and the right people start finding you anyway.
Brand positioning
What it sounds like: Where you sit in the market. A quadrant. A competitive landscape analysis… Excuse me, are you still awake?
What it actually is: The answer to ‘why you and not the other person who does roughly the same thing’.
You’ll know you have it when: You stop trying to compete on price because people aren’t comparing you to anyone else.
Aesthetic code
What it sounds like: Something a creative director says that makes non-creative-directors feel slightly nervous.
What it actually is: The specific visual language that makes your stuff look like your stuff and nobody else’s. The combination of colour, texture, reference, and feeling that is so particularly you that if someone cropped out your name, people would still know.
You’ll know you have it when: You stop second-guessing every design decision because you actually know what you’re aiming for.
Brand discovery
What it sounds like: A workshop. A retreat. A lot of Post-it notes and a facilitator who says ‘great, yes, and…’ a lot.
What it actually is: Someone asking you the questions nobody has asked before, and then actually listening to the answers.
You’ll know you have it when: You hear yourself say something out loud that you’ve never quite managed to articulate before and think: that’s it. That’s the thing.
The vibe
What it sounds like: Unserious. Possibly something a twenty-two year old says.
What it actually is: The entire point. The feeling someone gets before they’ve read a word of your copy. The thing that makes someone stay on your website or keep scrolling or save your post. The accumulated effect of every single creative decision you’ve made, whether you made them consciously or not.
You’ll know you have it when: People describe your brand and it sounds exactly like how you’d describe yourself on a good day.
A note on all of this
None of these terms are the enemy, they are genuinely useful, in the right hands, in the right rooms. But if the language of branding has ever made you feel like you’re not qualified to have opinions about your own business, like you need to learn the vocabulary before you’re allowed to participate, that’s the language failing you, not the other way around.
You don’t need to know what an aesthetic code is to have one. You don’t need to understand positioning to have a strong sense of what makes you different. You don’t need to have done a brand sprint to know that your current visuals don’t feel like you.
What you need is someone who can translate it all, in both directions. Who can take the instincts and feelings and references and half-formed ideas you already have, turn them into something legible and usable, and then build the visual world around it.
That’s what I do. With significantly fewer quadrants than average.
If you’ve been putting it off because the jargon made it feel like it wasn’t for you
It is for you. It’s especially for you.
The Brand Definition is where we start. It’s a process that asks the questions worth asking, produces a dossier in language you’ll actually recognise yourself in, and gives you the foundation for everything visual that follows. No strategy decks. No brand archetypes quiz (unless you want one, in which case we can talk). Just the real, specific, only-you version of what your brand actually is.