Logo and brand: definitions of essential terms

What is a brand ambassador?

The notion of brand ambassador can cover different realities that vary depending on the type of relationship and proximity between the brand and the ambassador. We can distinguish between the customer brand ambassador, the occasionally recruited ambassador, the brand icon ambassador, and the internal ambassador. The first three types are discussed in this article while the last is covered in a separate definition.

The "customer" brand ambassador: a customer brand ambassador is an individual who is a customer of the brand and carries out more or less voluntarily and spontaneously the promotion of a brand through word-of-mouth among their fellow consumers. This can be a spontaneous initiative by a brand enthusiast or behavior encouraged or triggered by the brand through various motivational elements (product samples, VIP invitations, etc.). The brand ambassador plays a prescriber role among their friends and acquaintances.

What is brainstorming?

Brainstorming is a qualitative research and creativity technique used notably to generate concepts, advertising ideas, or brands. The concept of brainstorming was promoted by advertiser Alex Osborn in the 1950s in the USA.

A brainstorming session takes the form of a group meeting where each person is invited to freely and spontaneously express ideas or suggestions related to the study topic. The facilitator must ensure the absence of negative judgments on suggestions so as not to harm the "productivity" and creativity of the brainstorming session.

What is branding?

The term branding generally designates a marketing or advertising action logic that primarily seeks to favorably position a brand in the consumer's mind.

A branding logic theoretically seeks more qualitative advertising effects in the medium and long term (attitude, awareness, image, etc.) than more or less immediate quantitative effects (immediate e-commerce sales, store visits, etc.).

What is co-branding?

In its strictest sense, co-branding is the practice in which two distinct and generally independent brands create a product resulting from the fusion of the two brands. In the food products sector where co-branding practices are most frequent, the fusion concerns both the product composition and the name of the newly created product, which is often a juxtaposition of the two associated brands.

A yogurt brand and a chocolate brand can thus ally to create a new chocolate yogurt brand. The co-branding operation can be "dominated" by the "host brand" that initiates the creation of the new product and then takes charge of production and distribution. In this case the "invited" brand is rewarded by the new market outlet and by possible sales commissions. Brand license concessions can sometimes be considered a co-branding practice.

Understood in a broader sense, co-branding is a marketing or commercial practice that aims to simultaneously promote the brands or products of two or more distinct companies. Collaboration between the two brands can take place within advertising (co-advertising/joint campaign) or through a promotional operation involving two brands. In this sense, it seems more appropriate to speak of a co-marketing action.

What is a product marketing manager?

Product marketing manager is a function generally present within large companies that own a broad portfolio of products or brands. In this type of company, the product manager ensures the marketing responsibility of a product or brand.

The scope of their responsibilities includes all decisions relating to the product's marketing mix.

The decisions made by the product marketing manager must be consistent with the company's overall marketing policy and must also take into account actions taken for other brands or products.

How do you break the rules?

Breaking marketing rules means attempting to differentiate a product, brand, or campaign by changing the communication codes normally used in a given sector. The broken codes can concern brand choice, design, colors, packaging, advertising tone, product nature, etc.

In communication, breaking rules allows you to play on brand memorization and perception (see breaking advertising rules). In the packaging field this also allows the product to stand out visually on the shelf.

Breaking marketing rules obviously presents a marketing risk insofar as you deprive the consumer of their usual reference points. Probably the greatest failure in this area was Pepsi's failure with its transparent cola, Crystal.

What is logo hijacking?

Logo hijacking is a graphic design exercise in which one modifies or alters a brand's official logo by changing, for example, its name and/or visual. Logo hijacking can be done purely as intellectual creation often humorous in nature or to deliberately attack a brand.

Logo hijacking is for example often used to denounce condemnable practices by brands in the societal or environmental domain. In rarer cases, logo hijacking can be done by the brand itself for event communication purposes.

Under French/European law, logo hijacking by a third party is normally prohibited by intellectual property code and trademark law and can therefore lead to civil and criminal proceedings. However, case law has recognized a right to "brand parody" and freedom of expression for activist purposes and in the public interest. The parody/hijacking action must, however, be completely "alien to business activities" that is completely disinterested and not constitute disparagement.

Logo hijacking can be damaging to brands and their image, particularly in the context of spreading on social media. They can be detected by logo recognition technologies. Their management is, however, very delicate because brands wishing to combat the phenomenon can find themselves facing a Streisand effect.

One of the times when brands themselves hijacked their logos was during the COVID-19 crisis, with social distancing.

What is brand hijacking?

The expression brand hijacking can correspond to different situations. Brand hijacking can first designate a practice in which a third party attempts to usurp the identity of a brand or at least divert physical or digital traffic that is normally intended for that brand. For more details on this meaning of brand hijacking. The term brand hijacking can also be used to designate what is in fact a logo hijacking or more rarely an advertising hijacking.

What is DNVB?

DNVB stands for Digital Native Vertical Brand. It is a term popularized by Andy Dunn, creator of the Bonobos brand, which is itself a symbol of the digital brand concept.

DNVBs are brands whose development takes place originally, if not exclusively, through an Internet presence that enables the creation, promotion, and distribution of the brand. A brand's DNVB character can assert itself from its creation with the possibility of resorting to crowdfunding and co-creation.

On the promotion side, DNVBs intensively use social networks for organic or sponsored posts, word-of-mouth phenomena, influencer marketing, and PR. As for distribution, it initially takes place through e-commerce activity which can be carried out on a merchant site and/or through presence on marketplaces, etc.

A DNVB meeting success can logically lose some of its digital specificity by investing in traditional advertising media and distribution through physical retail points.

What is brand history?

The notion of brand history generally refers to the fact that a brand capitalizes on its history in the context of its advertising communication. The use of brand history is a particular form of storytelling use that is notably often linked to the use of founder myth and the notion of brand heritage.

Capitalizing on one's brand history is notably a common practice in luxury marketing, but it is also found in many other fields of activity. The practice can even go as far as creating brand museums.

What is visual identity?

The visual identity of a brand or company is characterized by both its constituent elements and its function. The constituent elements of visual identity are the different graphic elements (logotype, symbol, fonts, colors, etc.) representing the brand across all its communication media.

Visual identity aims to enable brand recognition, convey its values, and reinforce its brand image.

The different graphic elements of a brand's visual identity are generally taken up and detailed in the company's brand guidelines.

What is INPI?

INPI or the National Institute of Industrial Property is responsible for managing trademarks and patents. It is with INPI that a prior art search must be conducted before filing a trademark because the organization manages the national register of trademarks which accounts for nearly one million trademarks across the different product classes in which trademark filings are made.

The trademark can be filed directly with INPI or through the commercial court clerk's office.

For the curious, visit the INPI website.

What is a responsive logo?

The concept of responsive logo is a response to the limitations of logo resizing. In a context where the media for displaying logos are increasingly varied in nature and size, logo design or creation approached from a responsive angle enables adaptation to environments where display space is particularly limited. This is for example the case when the logo must display on a smartphone screen. The concept of responsive logo involves varying the number of logo elements and possibly the arrangement of these elements depending on available space and the shape of that space. The brand guidelines for logo use can thus provide for lighter or stripped-down versions of the logo depending on available space to avoid simple resizing of the entire logo which would harm readability of its elements. Depending on the shape of available space, an illustrative element of the logo normally placed to the right of text can move below or vice versa.

The concept of responsive logo is not in itself entirely new; some brands have long had lighter versions of their "parent" or "main" logo available. However, the trend has increased with the growing prevalence of smartphone display and exposure.

The expression is more recent and is directly inspired by responsive web design or responsive email design practices that vary displayed elements and their layouts depending on available screen space.

What is mapping?

A mapping is a two-dimensional graphic representation that allows visualization of the positioning of different brands, products, or companies based on 2 criteria (price, perceived quality, modernity, etc.). The 2 criteria chosen correspond to the axes of the mapping and allow positioning brands on the graph and locating them in relation to each other.

The most frequently encountered form of mapping in the marketing field is the perceptual map.

Netiquette? What is it?

Netiquette is an informal rule, then a charter, that defines the rules of conduct and politeness recommended on the first communication media made available by the Internet. These are attempts to formalize a certain social contract for the Internet.

If only one rule had to be retained: "Do not use the Internet as a shield to do what you would not do in a real face-to-face conversation with your correspondent." To this notion of courtesy and respect for others are added further rules relating to the specificities of several media.

These rules have not, however, been updated to cover more recent media (forums, wikis, blogs, video conferencing, etc.), more recent standards (Unicode, XML, etc.), or more recent technologies (broadband, VoIP, etc.).

For example, email signatures, page layout, confidentiality, attachments, politeness, etc.

What is personal branding?

Personal branding is a practice in which an individual promotes their own image and skills through marketing and advertising techniques normally used to promote a brand. In this approach, the individual aims to become a "recognized brand" themselves. The personal branding approach can be undertaken within a professional activity or on a more personal basis.

Within a company, there are essentially three distinct cases of personal branding.

The first form corresponds to the case where an individual is "sold" along with the brand because they are its symbol and are durably associated with it. This is for example the case with founders like Alain Afflelou or Steve Jobs. In this case, individuals are "staged" at various events and may even appear in advertising messages or spots.

The second form of personal branding generally corresponds to the case where a company executive or expert promotes themselves at professional events or on the Internet through a blog or social networks. In this case, the situation is more ambiguous because the individual represents the brand or their employer but also "gains" value as an individual who could one day be on the job market or become an independent business creator. This is generally referred to as professional branding.

The third case corresponds to the logical approach of personal branding in independent or freelance activity.