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Invite colleaguesThe brand language brief: A pillar of sound brand strategy
Abstract
When carefully planned, language can be a strategic tool for managing a brand’s communication to target customers and for building brand equity. This paper explains how and why managers should conduct a brand language audit — a comprehensive inventory of the many and varied linguistic devices used by brands in the category — and then use the findings from the audit to develop a brand language brief. The brand language brief is like a blueprint for crafting a distinctive language for a brand. It ensures that a brand’s language aligns with a brand’s overall communications strategy; it guides development of the language that will be deployed throughout all of the brand’s marketing initiatives, including brand naming, claims, advertising, packaging, sales promotion, and even face-to-face and online interaction at the point of purchase. The authors argue that a strong brand language brief will help bring attention to a brand’s message, enhance message comprehension and memory, convey the desired brand personality and contribute to the formation of sustainable relationships with consumers. A brand language strategy will be a driving factor in a brand’s marketplace success.
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Author's Biography
Robert J. Morais is Adjunct Professor in the Marketing Division at Columbia Business School. He is a business anthropologist and has published several books and numerous papers. He spent 25 years with advertising agencies, rising to Chief Strategic Officer, and then became a Principal at marketing research firm Weinman Schnee Morais, serving in that position for eleven years. He is a co-founder of businessanthro.com.
Dawn Lerman is Professor of Marketing and Executive Director of the Center for Positive Marketing at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, where she studies the impact of words and other aspects of language on brand perceptions, consumer-brand relationships and memory for brands. She is an active member of the ANA Educational Foundation (AEF) Board of Directors, where she co-chairs a host of initiatives designed to connect academia and industry.