{"id":7765,"date":"2014-05-15T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/?p=7765"},"modified":"2014-05-15T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T10:30:00","slug":"what-is-a-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a brand?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the biggest issues when talking about brands is that people often have a range of different definitions for this term. It&rsquo;s often taken for granted that everyone is on the same page when these conversations start, but without being clear about this definition from the get-go plenty of misunderstandings and unnecessary compromises can appear as the project progresses. This post will list a number of the most common definitions of brand and give you a single definition that will help you to get the most of the brand work.<\/p>\n<h3>Some common definitions<\/h3>\n<p>To start with, here&rsquo;s a few different definitions that people use when they&rsquo;re talking about &#39;brand&#39;:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The logo<\/li>\n<li>The colour palette<\/li>\n<li>The design style<\/li>\n<li>The company<\/li>\n<li>The company&rsquo;s name<\/li>\n<li>The company&rsquo;s messaging<\/li>\n<li>The company&rsquo;s values<\/li>\n<li>The company&rsquo;s marketing<\/li>\n<li>A company that&rsquo;s successful<\/li>\n<li>A promise to customers\/clients<\/li>\n<li>A person or company&rsquo;s presentation of values<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is why it&rsquo;s always useful when you start working with a client on branding work or when you&rsquo;re starting to implement such work with an in-house team to outline which definition of branding you&rsquo;re focussing on and what your perceptions about branding are.<\/p>\n<h3>A more inclusive definition<\/h3>\n<p>Because a lot of the above definitions are quite specific as well, it&rsquo;s useful to have one that doesn&rsquo;t limit the scope of what you can accomplish too much.<\/p>\n<p>The definition of the term &lsquo;brand&rsquo; that we use is:<\/p>\n<p>A brand encapsulates how an individual feels about a product, service, organisation or individual.<\/p>\n<p>This is a valuable definition to use for the following reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Having the customer at the centre of this definition keeps the focus on how much value the work provides to them<\/li>\n<li>This definition includes many of the areas covered by the other definitions above and aims all of this work towards the same end goal, which also increases the chances that the work will be more consistent<\/li>\n<li>The definition takes into account the broad nature of branding and how it can be applied beyond the company itself to include personal branding too, offering a more comprehensive view<\/li>\n<li>The definition emphasises the importance of examining the products and services of the company in detail so neither is overlooked and both of these areas can be aligned<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We hope that this post has helped you to clarify points about the branding work you do with your clients and\/or team members.<\/p>\n<p>Do you have a particular definition you use for approaching brand work? Let us know in the comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the biggest issues when talking about brands is that people often have a range of different definitions for this term. It&rsquo;s often taken for granted that everyone is on the same page when these conversations start, but without being clear about this definition from the get-go plenty of misunderstandings and unnecessary compromises can appear as the project progresses. This post will list a number of the most common definitions of brand and give you a single definition that will help you to get the most of the brand work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-heart-internet","8":"category-your-website"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a brand? - Heart Internet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is a brand? - Written by the team at Heart Internet.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is a brand? - Heart Internet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What is a brand? - Written by the team at Heart Internet.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Heart Internet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartinternet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-15T10:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@heartinternet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@heartinternet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/58ed7f27cc0f3ab6e69135742a5eee28\"},\"headline\":\"What is a brand?\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-15T10:30:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/\"},\"wordCount\":452,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Heart Internet\",\"Your Website\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/\",\"name\":\"What is a brand? - Heart Internet\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-15T10:30:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"What is a brand? - Written by the team at Heart Internet.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg\",\"width\":1620,\"height\":720},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What is a brand?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/\",\"name\":\"Heart Internet\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Heart Internet\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/HeartInternet_Logo_Colour.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/HeartInternet_Logo_Colour.webp\",\"width\":992,\"height\":252,\"caption\":\"Heart Internet\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartinternet\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/heartinternet\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/heart-internet-ltd\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/58ed7f27cc0f3ab6e69135742a5eee28\",\"name\":\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cropped-Eliot-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cropped-Eliot-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/author\/eliot-chambers-ostler\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What is a brand? - Heart Internet","description":"What is a brand? - Written by the team at Heart Internet.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"What is a brand? - Heart Internet","og_description":"What is a brand? - Written by the team at Heart Internet.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/","og_site_name":"Heart Internet","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartinternet\/","article_published_time":"2014-05-15T10:30:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1620,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@heartinternet","twitter_site":"@heartinternet","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler","Estimated reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/"},"author":{"name":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/58ed7f27cc0f3ab6e69135742a5eee28"},"headline":"What is a brand?","datePublished":"2014-05-15T10:30:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/"},"wordCount":452,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg","articleSection":["Heart Internet","Your Website"],"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/","url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/","name":"What is a brand? - Heart Internet","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg","datePublished":"2014-05-15T10:30:00+00:00","description":"What is a brand? - Written by the team at Heart Internet.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/category_heart_internet1.jpg","width":1620,"height":720},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/what-is-a-brand\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What is a brand?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#website","url":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/","name":"Heart Internet","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization","name":"Heart Internet","url":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/HeartInternet_Logo_Colour.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/HeartInternet_Logo_Colour.webp","width":992,"height":252,"caption":"Heart Internet"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartinternet\/","https:\/\/x.com\/heartinternet","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/heart-internet-ltd"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/58ed7f27cc0f3ab6e69135742a5eee28","name":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cropped-Eliot-96x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cropped-Eliot-96x96.jpg","caption":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler"},"url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/author\/eliot-chambers-ostler\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}