• Signs are not style: Most models keep two things apart. The fixed signs by which people recognise the brand (name, logo, colours, type, tagline: Costa, Alves, Whitlock, Gramco, Dentsu, Wolff Olins). And the manner in which the brand expresses itself (imagery, photography, tone of voice, design style: Esch's brand image, Whitlock's Voice and Visual). Signs stay constant. Style can flex: Dvornechuck fixes the voice and lets the tone shift with the situation. Canvases that put both under one heading called design lose this distinction.
• A sign has to pass a test: Aaker wants a symbol to stand for a benefit, as the Prudential rock stands for strength. Alves asks for the literal and the associated meaning of each symbol (charity: water's jerry can for hardship and hope). Wiehrdt gives the hardest test: an element counts as a brand property only when it is unique, stands out and is known in the target group, like the golden M that toddlers recognise. Sasserath and Wenhart add a second label: essential signs that cannot change (Telekom's magenta) and accidental ones that can.
• Behaviour is the strongest message: The Japanese CI system says a philosophy that never shows in behaviour exists in name only. Birkigt and Stadler hold that stakeholders judge a company by its actions before its words. De Chernatony tells managers to watch the gap between what advertising says and what staff do. Miltenburg asks who the faces of the brand are (Airbnb's hosts). Gardner's artifacts show that an act, like a hackathon or a pink moustache on a car, can express more than a logo.
• Story and messages are planned, not left to chance: Wiehrdt's pedigree (the Red Bull smuggling myth), Whitlock's brand lore, Alves' narrative with characters and archetypes and Gardner's rallying point all make the story a field to fill. Brandcom adds the reason: when products are alike, the story carries the difference. For messages, Woods allows three to five, each with proof. Biddle's headline is an internal one-liner that customers never see. Dvornechuck's tagline faces customers, lasts for years and is not a campaign slogan. Three different things that are often called the same.
• Expression comes last and needs a no-go list: Urde says the visual identity belongs to the identity but not to its heart. Houraghan puts design at step twelve, because a designer who gets the full strategy does better work. Brandcom's bottom row must follow from the rows above. TAIKN and Dvornechuck both write down what the brand does not do next to what it does. Saying what the brand is not keeps the expression sharp.
• Choose touchpoints, do not list them: Costa calls the shop or the theme park the place of the brand's identity. Miltenburg adds events the brand creates itself (Airbnb Open). TAIKN ranks touchpoints by relevance to the target group and by the current gap. Dvornechuck ranks initiatives by effort against impact and shows what the choice costs: Duolingo's mascot account took years to build. The brand should pick the few touchpoints it wants to be known for.

What this suggests for a planning model: fill expression last and derive it from the identity. Keep separate fields for fixed signs (marked essential or changeable) and for style (visual and verbal manner, with a no-go list). Add a field for behaviour and the people who are the brand's faces, a story, three to five key messages with proof, and a short ranked list of the touchpoints the brand wants to own.

• Four things hide under two words: The models use vision and mission for four different things. A picture of a future world (Miltenburg's top of the mountain, Gramco's state the brand cannot show yet). A reason for being beyond money (Gramco asks why the world needs the company, Gad's spiritual dimension, the why in Knapp's three circles). A statement of what the brand does and for whom (Miltenburg's way up the mountain, in eight words or less). And a dated business goal (Helder's ambition, Brandcom's niche hero or world leader, Davis's growth gap). The labels do not match the content: Davis's vision is a business target, Whitlock's mission is a purpose, Helder's mission is a promise.
• Purpose is never finished; goals are: Dvornechuck draws the line: a goal can be reached, a purpose cannot. Knapp agrees with Sinek that the what and the how change while the why stays (Nike still stands for what Phil Knight believed in 1964). Tony's Chocolonely protects its purpose with a golden share and independent guardians so that a later owner cannot change it quietly. A purpose deserves protection; a goal deserves a deadline.
• State the horizon: Davis looks three to five years ahead, Burmann and de Chernatony five to ten, Knapp and Biddle twenty, and Biddle wants a purpose that still inspires after fifty. Gramco says the vision must reach beyond the business plan. Konečnik Ruzzier and de Chernatony separate mission and vision by time: the mission looks at past and present, the vision at the future. Without a stated horizon, nobody can tell a vision from a plan.
• Direction is written for the inside, with one exception: Burmann wants the vision to make staff identify with the brand. De Chernatony wants it to inspire their work. Dvornechuck wants it bold enough to feel a little daunting, yet believable, like IKEA's line that has held for decades. Only Davis writes it for senior management, with a financial number the brand is accountable for. A planning model can carry both: an inspiring line and a number.
• Goals get skipped: Brandcom observes that the goal is often settled only in passing, although everything else depends on it. Helder drops the vision and asks for a concrete objective with a date instead. Caballer wants a ranked top three for revenue, awareness and efficiency so that people know what not to work on. Three models say this; most say nothing about goals.

What this suggests for a planning model: keep purpose (why, lasting, protected), vision (where, a picture of the future with a stated horizon) and mission or ambition (what, for whom, by when, measurable) as separate fields, each labelled with its time horizon, so that a business target is never mistaken for a purpose.

• Origin is chosen, not inherited: Burmann makes the sharpest point. History is everything that ever happened. Origin is the part management decides to stress, in three facets: region, culture and institution (the industry, the company, the founders; Claus Hipp standing with his name for organic baby food). Aaker treats heritage as backstory that a brand may or may not use (Starbucks' first coffeehouse) and country of origin as an image it can borrow (Rolex is Swiss). Wiehrdt goes furthest: a myth, even the Red Bull story of smuggled cans, can be the root of a brand.
• Culture is what you are; philosophy is what you want to be: Capriotti separates the two and warns that a gap between them damages the image. At the Loja fair, staff knew the official concept but did not believe in it. De Chernatony shows cultures colliding in Pori, where individualist arts staff met collectivist business staff, and advises fixing a few core values while letting the rest adapt. Baumgarth gives the simplest measure of culture: can employees explain the brand?
• Competences are more than product quality, and they expire: Burmann calls it a shortened view to equate competence with quality. A competence is the ability to combine resources for the market. It only counts if customers pay for it. It is temporary, because it rests on knowing more than rivals, so it needs constant investment and the people who carry it (Audi's string of innovations behind its technology claim). Urde and Greyser show that a process can be a competence (the Nobel Prize's century-old evaluation routine). The Genetic Code traces the chain from each department to the market (Miele's twenty-year test for readable lettering).
• The organisation is harder to copy than the product: That is Aaker's reason for looking at the organisation at all. People, culture and programmes last longer than features, and rivals cannot copy them easily (3M's name for innovation). Esch lets attributes belong to the company as well as to the offer, so that they serve as reasons to believe. De Chernatony adds that customers watch how staff treat each other, so internal relationships are part of the sender too.

What this suggests for a planning model: three fields for the sender. A chosen origin (which parts of the history, which place, which founders). The lived culture, checked against the stated values. And a few competences, each with a note on what keeps it alive. All written as what the organisation can prove, not what it would like to be.

• Scope is a decision with risk on both sides: Aaker shows that a scope that is too narrow holds a brand back (Nike as a shoe brand only). Burmann shows the opposite failure: an offer that does not fit the identity, like Jaguar's cheap estate car, which nobody seems to have chosen on purpose. Brandcom gives a quick test: a brand that promises an easier life should not have a complicated range. Aaker also names the scope choice that most models skip: global prestige or local closeness.
• One product can stand for all of them: Wiehrdt's brand icon works as a part for the whole. The Burberry trench carries quality and tradition over to five thousand other items. Kapferer puts the flagship product into the physique (Orangina's round bottle, unchanged and central to every launch abroad). Urde puts it into expression. A cheap, strong tool that three models share.
• Attributes are the base, not the point: The ladder models (de Chernatony, Biddle, the Brand Onion, Woods) put features at the bottom and read upwards to benefits and feelings. Esch's Volvo example says it plainly: nobody buys airbags, they buy safe driving, and the airbags make the claim credible. Biddle adds that features come and go and are where new ideas show up, while the levels above change far less. Kapferer calls the physique the stem of the flower: without it the brand dies, but it is not the flower. De Chernatony sets the limit: three key attributes, each laddered up to a personality trait.
• Own a use or an arena: Only Aaker and Centenaro cover this. Aaker: owning an occasion (Gatorade for athletes, Starbucks as a place to work) is a strong position, but a brand tied to one use may struggle to win any other (Q-tips). Centenaro: a person must name the arena in which to compete and become visible. Rare in the models, valuable for a planning model.
• Price is read as an attribute: Urde's hexagon notes that people take the price as a sign of quality. Bates' outer ring lists expensive and elite next to German and top quality for Mercedes. So the quality attribute is partly set by the price tier, and the two should be decided together.

What this suggests for a planning model: a scope field that names the core offer, the complementary offer and one icon product. At most three attributes, each with the benefit it supports. A field for the use, occasion or arena the brand wants to own. And an explicit global-or-local choice.

• One ladder, many names: Almost every model climbs the same ladder: feature, functional benefit, emotional benefit, then self-expression or values. De Chernatony, Biddle, the Brand Onion and Woods read it bottom up. Akutsu and Ishida and Aaker's value proposition name three rungs (functional, emotional, self-expressive). Wilensky names three too but swaps the top one for the economic benefit. The rule underneath is shared: a benefit only counts when an attribute backs it (Esch, Biddle, Dentsu).
• Where the fight is won is disputed: Esch argues that most brands deliver the functional benefits, so customers tell brands apart by the psychosocial ones. Aaker advises leaving functional advantages behind because rivals copy them fast. Woods calls the emotional rung the place where most startups stop and the biggest chance to differ. Against them stands the Bates wheel, which in Drömann's reading knows only the practical benefit, true to the USP tradition. Esch adds why the emotional rung is so often empty: customers answer rationally first (Persil makes the washing white, not: Persil makes me feel I did everything right). Biddle's fix is to force the answer into feeling words (Netflix: delight).
• The promise is one sentence with two ends: Urde defines the brand core as core values that lead up to a promise, a beacon for inside and outside (ABB; the Nobel Prize's promise taken from the will). Brandcom calls finding it the hardest task in brand building and places it between what customers want and what rivals can offer. Wiehrdt and Helder write it as a problem-solution pair: how the brand solves an important customer problem in a way the competition cannot. Sasserath and Wenhart give it two legs, benefit and support, and insist it covers the whole brand, not single products (BMW's joy of driving works for drivers, staff and investors alike).
• One promise per audience: Miltenburg splits Airbnb's promise into one for guests and one for hosts. Urde sees the challenge in writing specific propositions that still fit one broad core. The place model stacks promises on three levels, with an experiential promise on top (Slovenian green as something you feel, not a colour).
• Price is a benefit too: Only Wilensky and Aaker say so. Wilensky treats the economic benefit as perceived value, quality in relation to price. A high price can signal prestige (Lucky Strike in Argentina). A fair low price adds value. A price above the delivered value kills the repeat purchase. Aaker makes premium or value a basic identity choice (Walmart; Lexus against Toyota). A planning model should not leave the price tier to the marketing plan.

What this suggests for a planning model: a benefit ladder with attributes at the base, a required field for the emotional or self-expressive benefit, an explicit price tier, and one promise sentence per audience that names the customer's problem, the brand's answer and what rivals cannot match.

• The target is not the reflection: Kapferer insists that the customer the brand shows is not the customer it sells to. Coca-Cola shows fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds and sells to everyone, because children see a dream and adults a way of life. Dentsu's ideal customer image is the person the brand wants to love it, and if that person shifts, everything else shifts (Georgia coffee aimed at schoolgirls would need a different can and campaign). Most canvases ask only for the target and miss the second figure.
• Two mirrors: Kapferer splits reflection (how customers want to be seen by others) from self-image (how they see themselves when using the brand: Lacoste wearers feel part of an elegant club without doing sport). Yanenko keeps both and shows that in B2B they turn into professionalism and status. Gad's mental dimension goes deepest: the brand as a role model that helps people feel capable (IKEA makes people do part of the work and gives them ideas).
• One key customer sharpens the brand: Gramco names the strategic customers the brand most wants to work with, while still serving the rest, because a product and a personality are hard to shape without a face in mind. Dvornechuck gives the persona a name and two sentences, and his Stanley story shows the lever: the flask stayed the same, the main customer changed from workmen to women, and revenue grew tenfold. Caballer adds the discipline: three profiles with three top needs each, agreed by the whole team, or effort gets wasted.
• Audiences beyond buyers: Knapp asks whose opinion matters and lists reporters, regulators and future hires. TAIKN lists seven stakeholder groups and shows that which ones count depends on the brand architecture: Siemens faces all of them, Procter & Gamble's corporate brand hardly faces shoppers. The place model goes further: stakeholders do not only receive the brand, they make it, from a Delphi panel to seven hundred representatives to the public.
• Belonging is a benefit of its own: Gad's social dimension makes the brand a badge of the group a person wants to join; seeing someone in your brand's T-shirt creates a connection. Alves asks which communities the brand has and how it keeps the dialogue going, with events and co-creation as loyalty builders (charity: water's birthday fundraisers). Only two models treat community as an identity element.

What this suggests for a planning model: two customer fields rather than one. The target (who buys, with needs and situations) and the reflected user (whom the brand shows and wants to love it). Add a line on the self-image the brand offers, a stakeholder list ranked by whose opinion matters, and a line on the community the brand creates.

• Few, and ranked: Knapp cuts the list to three and insists on one most important value, because that is what makes decisions easier. Dietrich Identity works with exactly three values. Dvornechuck picks three to five with one line on each. Burmann and TAIKN ask for a few statements that people can remember. De Chernatony adds the second cut: a few core values that stay whatever happens, and peripheral ones that may come and go. Nobody in the atlas argues for a long list.
• Values alone do not set a brand apart: TAIKN says it bluntly. The values of most corporate brands are and must be similar, because a good culture needs similar values. Unilever agrees: the difference lies in how a brand lives its values, not in the words. Dietrich Identity's answer is the core in the overlap of three ordinary values. Knapp's answer is the ranking. Capriotti's institutional values (ethics, environment, as at The Body Shop) are one of the few cases where the values themselves differentiate.
• Make them concrete enough to act on: Dietrich's facets turn a word into behaviour (close becomes sales, advice, reliability). Dvornechuck writes the behaviour into the value (IKEA's cost-consciousness means more from less without losing quality). Woods calls values internal guide rails, not marketing copy. Miltenburg warns that values not embedded in the culture will never work. Unilever adds a rule for communication: do not state values outright, let them come through.
• A stance is more than a value: Wiehrdt's point of view asks what attitude the brand takes on topics that matter to its target group. He allows a stance that most people reject as long as the brand's own customers share it (Harley-Davidson's boundless freedom). Dvornechuck's brand attitude, what the brand loves and hates, points the same way. One or two models have it, and it does what a value list cannot: it makes the brand take sides.
• Bundles hide the parts: Eleven models keep a philosophy block that packs mission, vision and values into one statement: Capriotti's corporate philosophy (what I want to be when I grow up), the Japanese mind identity, Akutsu's philosophy, Costa's six self-critical questions, Houraghan's four things to settle, Gad's code. Useful as a whole, but the bundle hides which part is a direction and which a belief, and Sasserath and Wenhart and Unilever blur values with personality in the same way.

What this suggests for a planning model: three to five values, ranked, each with one line of behaviour and one or two facets. A separate line for the brand's stance on an issue its customers care about. And a clear split between beliefs (values) and direction (purpose, vision, mission), which the philosophy bundles mix together.

• Five ways to pin a personality down: Trait lists (Aaker's genuine, energetic, rugged; TAIKN with Jennifer Aaker's validated items). Archetypes (Dvornechuck picks a main and a secondary one: Liquid Death as Outlaw with a dash of Jester among Innocents). Sliders between extremes (Knapp's four lines from friend to authority, with the advice to be strongly opinionated on at least one). Test questions (Whitlock: how would you describe the brand as a friend; Biddle: what would a guest say about it after a party; Brandcom: would the brand use the formal or the informal you). And a figurehead who gives instant character (Kapferer, Houraghan's gecko). A planning model can offer more than one way in.
• Say what the brand is not, and what it thinks: Whitlock's antonyms column is a small idea with a big effect: playful can read as immature, so the unwanted trait is written next to the wanted one. Houraghan fills the archetype with the brand's opinions on its industry and the world, and Dvornechuck adds what the brand loves and hates. A trait list without a no-list and without opinions stays flat.
• State whose personality it is: Kapferer warns against confusing the brand as sender with the reflected customer. Urde adds that a product brand's personality tends to come from its users, a corporate brand's from its employees; the place model takes it from the residents. Bates' ring, as Drömann notes, records how outsiders see the brand, which makes it image rather than identity. Burmann allows that users and representatives reshape the personality after launch, by plan or by chance. The source should be stated.
• Personality is values made visible, and it sets the context: De Chernatony calls personality a metaphor for the brand's emotional values. Unilever gives values hands and feet through personification (George Clooney for Nespresso). Woods calls personality the outward expression of what the values say inside. Akutsu and Ishida add the sharpest observation: the same message reads differently under a different character, so personality is not decoration but the frame for everything the brand says.
• Relationship is a mode of conduct: Kapferer defines the relationship facet as how the brand acts and treats people (Nike provokes, IBM orders, Apple befriends). Aaker makes it a role from real life (Campbell's as the old-fashioned mother, Lyft as the cool friend). Urde asks for the nature of the relationship with each stakeholder group (ABB: partnership, trust, long term). Esch offers three overlapping ways into the emotional side: a personality, a relationship and a typical experience (a Würth rep with a magnetic torch). De Chernatony and Yanenko widen it to staff-to-staff relationships and to every member of a B2B buying centre.

What this suggests for a planning model: a personality field with three to five traits, their antonyms, an optional archetype, one or two deliberately extreme slider positions and a line on the brand's opinions. A note on where the personality comes from (users, staff or a figurehead). And a separate relationship field that names the role the brand plays and the mode of conduct it follows with each audience.

• The difference is one thing: Unilever's discriminator is the single most compelling reason to choose the brand over all others. Helder's brand core is one superpower in a word or two (Benuta: empathetic; SIDES: make it simple). TAIKN wants a difference that is real and noticeable in content, not a slogan. Capriotti's competitive attributes (quality, variety and service against low price) show that the difference is often a plain commercial choice. Houraghan finds it from above: map the audience and the rivals, then take the openings they left.
• The difference need not sit in the product: Brandcom says the story can carry it when the products are alike, down to the reason for the price. Kudryashov and colleagues add that the discriminator need not be the same as the reasons to believe. Helder's competence and Wiehrdt's promise show the other route: the difference lies in how the brand solves the customer's problem in a way rivals cannot (automating the monkey work so that restaurateurs can be hosts).
• Proof can be visible or hidden, and it can be staged: Aaker's proof points are skills and programmes already in place. Some customers see (Nordstrom's return policy), some they do not (its hiring and pay). Unilever goes a step further: contact moments can be built so that they deliver the proof, a travel agency with a slightly messy office to prove cheapness, a search engine with a built-in delay because results that came back too fast were not trusted. Dentsu puts the proof into the first message layer, next to the symbol, so that trust is shown before any benefit is claimed. Sasserath and Wenhart make the rule general: every proposition has a benefit and a support.
• Decide what credibility means: Aaker's 1996 credibility box is read three ways in the sources: vouching for other brands, the brand's competences, or the visible commitment of the organisation to keep its promise (Zappos' service). The three are different fields. A planning model should pick one and name it, or it inherits the same vagueness.

What this suggests for a planning model: one sentence for the key difference, written so that it names what rivals cannot match, and a short list of proof points, each tagged as visible or behind the scenes and each tied to the claim it supports, with room for proof that is deliberately staged at a touchpoint.