Brando types overview

The Brando Schema Vocabulary v1.3 defines ten core classes under the brando: namespace.

These classes form the backbone of a Brand Knowledge Graph used by a Brand Operating System (Brand OS), LLM apps, and agents to:

represent brand identity and architecture,
attach verbal, visual, and audio expression tokens,
encode governance and automation rules,
and align products and services with external classifications (GS1, UNSPSC, Google Product Taxonomy).

This page gives a conceptual overview of each class and how they relate.
For detailed, per-class reference, see the dedicated pages under Schema → Types in the navigation.

1. Identity and context types

1.1 `brando:Brand`

IRI: brando:Brand
Superclasses:

schema:Intangible
schema:Brand (alignment)

Comment (summary):

Core brand identity node extended with governance, architecture, and AI-ready semantics.

Use brando:Brand as the primary identity node for a brand in the Brand Knowledge Graph. It is the anchor point for:

Identity fields – e.g. brando:missionStatement, brando:visionStatement, brando:coreValues, brando:marketPosition, brando:tagline.
Architecture and inheritance – e.g. brando:brandArchitectureRole, brando:inheritsPolicies, brando:inheritsTokens.
Expression links – e.g. brando:usesVerbal, brando:usesVisual, brando:usesAudio.
Governance links – e.g. brando:hasPolicy, brando:hasAutomationRule.
Classification links – e.g. brando:hasProductCategory to brando:BrandedCategory.

Typical use:

One brando:Brand per master brand (corporate, product, regional).
Additional brando:Brand nodes for sub-brands or endorsed brands, connected via your architecture conventions and inheritance properties.

See: brando:Brand type reference

1.2 `brando:Context`

IRI: brando:Context
Superclass: schema:Intangible

Comment (summary):

Activation context describing audience, channel, jurisdiction, and operational conditions for brand behaviour.

A brando:Context describes where, for whom, and under what conditions the brand is active. It captures the variables that change how the brand should behave, such as:

Audience – e.g. brando:audienceSegment, brando:audiencePersona.
Channel / surface – often serialised in brando:domainContext as JSON (string).
Operational or regulatory conditions – e.g. region, jurisdiction, journey stage.

Key linking properties:

brando:hasContext (domain: brando:Brand, range: brando:Context)
brando:usesVerbal, brando:usesVisual, brando:usesAudio
(domain includes brando:Context as well as brando:Brand)
brando:hasPolicy / brando:hasAutomationRule
(governance scoped to a particular context, where applicable)

Typical use:

Define a context per channel × objective × region that materially changes behaviour, e.g.:
“Retail chatbot – UK”
“Investor relations – global site”
“Paid social ads – US”

See: brando:Context type reference

2. Expression types (BrandExpression hierarchy)

Brando models expression as reusable tokens that can be attached to brands and contexts.

2.1 `brando:BrandExpression`

IRI: brando:BrandExpression
Superclass: schema:Intangible

Comment (summary):

Abstract superclass for reusable brand expression tokens across verbal, visual, and audio modalities.

This is an abstract class. You typically don’t instantiate it directly. Instead, you use one of its concrete subclasses:

Brando:VerbalIdentity
brando:Visual
Brando:AudioIdentity

Use it conceptually to understand that all tokens share similar patterns:

They are reusable configuration objects.
They can be attached to brando:Brand and brando:Context via:
brando:usesVerbal
brando:usesVisual
brando:usesAudio

See: brando:BrandExpression type reference

2.2 `Brando:VerbalIdentity`

IRI: Brando:VerbalIdentity
Superclass: brando:BrandExpression

Comment (summary):

Reusable configuration of the brand’s voice, language, and behavioural prompt rules.

A Brando:VerbalIdentity defines how the brand speaks. It is designed to be:

Reusable across contexts (e.g. “default voice”, “support voice”),
read by LLMs and agents to shape prompts and sampling behaviour.

Common properties:

brando:toneOfVoice – free-text description of tone.
brando:approvedTerms / brando:prohibitedTerms – vocab constraints.
brando:keyMessages – core ideas that should recur.
brando:dialogueStyle / brando:speechStyle / brando:writingStyle.
brando:promptScaffold – optional scaffold for runtime prompts.
brando:pronunciationGuide / brando:voiceSignature for more specialised deployments.

Linking properties:

brando:usesVerbal (domain: brando:Brand or brando:Context, range: Brando:VerbalIdentity).

See: Brando:VerbalIdentity type reference

2.3 `brando:Visual`

IRI: brando:Visual
Superclass: brando:BrandExpression

Comment (summary):

Reusable configuration of the brand’s visual system: logo, colour, typography, imagery, and motion.

A brando:Visual defines how the brand looks in a structured way that can be mapped to:

design systems,
UI theming,
multimodal / image generation prompts.

Typical properties:

brando:logo – logo references or URIs.
brando:colourPalette – color tokens or palette definition.
brando:typography – type system description.
brando:imageryStyles – photography/illustration guidance.
brando:motionRules – animation / motion design rules.
brando:visualReferenceLink – links to Figma, brand portals, etc.
brando:visualUsageGuidelines – usage notes.

Linking property:

brando:usesVisual (domain: brando:Brand or brando:Context, range: brando:Visual).

See: brando:Visual type reference

2.4 `Brando:AudioIdentity`

IRI: Brando:AudioIdentity
Superclass: brando:BrandExpression

Comment (summary):

Reusable configuration of the brand’s sonic identity across voice, sonic logos, and audio cues.

An Brando:AudioIdentity encodes sonic identity:

Brando:AudioIdentityLogo – sonic logos or stings.
Brando:AudioIdentityCue – UX/UI sounds, notifications.
Brando:AudioIdentityReferenceLink – reference tracks or libraries.
Brando:AudioIdentityUsageGuidelines – where and how audio should be used.
Overlaps with brando:voiceSignature, brando:pronunciationGuide when voice is involved.

Linking property:

brando:usesAudio (domain: brando:Brand or brando:Context, range: Brando:AudioIdentity).

See: Brando:AudioIdentity type reference

3. Governance types

3.1 `brando:Policy`

IRI: brando:Policy
Superclass: schema:Intangible

Comment (summary):

Governance node encoding guard rails, refusals, compliance tags, and retrieval visibility.

A brando:Policy is a first-class governance object. It captures:

brand rules,
legal constraints,
risk-mitigating behaviours.

Key properties include:

Scope and linkage
brando:appliesTo – the brand or context the policy applies to.
brando:appliesToProduct / brando:appliesToGTIN – product-specific rules.
Governance behaviour
brando:enforcementLevel – describes how strongly the policy is enforced (e.g. "mandatory", "advisory", "conditional"; values are not constrained by the vocabulary).
brando:riskTag – tags for risk categories (e.g. "financial-regulation").
brando:mustDos / brando:mustNotDos – explicit behaviours.
brando:refusalStrategies – how AI systems should refuse or redirect.
brando:retrievableInLLM – whether the policy can be exposed to LLMs/RAG.
Lifecycle & process
brando:reviewWorkflow – human/automated review description.
Temporal metadata such as dcterms:created, dcterms:modified in instance data.

Linking properties:

brando:hasPolicy (domain: brando:Brand or brando:Context, range: brando:Policy).

See: brando:Policy type reference

3.2 `brando:AutomationRule`

IRI: brando:AutomationRule
Superclass: schema:Intangible

Comment (summary):

Automated governance rule that reacts to monitored metrics or events to adjust brand behaviour.

A brando:AutomationRule encodes condition–action logic for governance and runtime adaptation.

Common properties:

brando:triggerType – describes what triggers the rule (event/metric).
brando:automationAction – description of the action taken.
brando:schedulingRule – when/how often to evaluate the rule.
brando:monitoredMetric – metrics the rule looks at (e.g. incident counts, quality scores).

Linking properties:

brando:hasAutomationRule (domain: brando:Brand or brando:Context, range: brando:AutomationRule).

Example uses (non-normative):

Tighten enforcement for high-risk contexts when a metric crosses a threshold.
Trigger human review when specific risk tags are involved.
Limit exposure of certain tokens or categories under conditions.

See: brando:AutomationRule type reference

4. Product and category type

4.1 `brando:BrandedCategory`

IRI: brando:BrandedCategory
Superclass: schema:Intangible

Comment (summary):

Product or service category overlaid with brand semantics and aligned to GS1 GPC, UNSPSC, and other standards such as Google Product Taxonomy.

A brando:BrandedCategory is a brand-level category node that:

maintains your brand’s own category language, and
aligns it with external classification schemes.

Key properties:

brando:productCategoryName – brand-facing label for the category.
brando:gpcCategoryCode / brando:gpcCategoryDescription – GS1 GPC alignment.
brando:unspscCode – UNSPSC code alignment.
brando:googleProductCategoryId – Google Product Taxonomy identifier.
Optional governance overlays:
brando:categoryApprovedTerms / brando:categoryProhibitedTerms.

Linking property:

brando:hasProductCategory (domain: brando:Brand, range: brando:BrandedCategory).

Typical uses:

drive search and recommendation in commerce flows,
keep AI-generated content aligned with product classification,
bridge brand semantics and marketplace / ad platform taxonomies.

See: brando:BrandedCategory type reference

5. Temporal and campaign type

5.1 `brando:Campaign`

IRI: brando:Campaign
Superclass: schema:Event

Comment (summary):

Time-bound marketing or communications campaign that may temporarily adjust brand rules.

A brando:Campaign represents a time-bound overlay (e.g. seasonal, promotional, or thematic campaign) that can:

temporarily adjust tokens (e.g. different tone, visuals),
introduce campaign-specific policies,
apply to specific contexts or categories.

Typical properties:

brando:campaignName – campaign label.
brando:campaignTheme – narrative/theme description.
Temporal metadata (via schema:Event pattern):
- schema:startDate, schema:endDate in instance data (non-vocabulary fields but standard Schema.org usage).

Linking properties (pattern):

Campaigns are discovered via properties such as brando:hasCampaign on brando:Brand or brando:Context.

See: brando:Campaign type reference

6. High-level type diagram

Conceptual relationships (non-normative diagram):

schema:Thing
└── schema:Intangible
    ├── schema:Brand
    │   └── brando:Brand
    │       ├── brando:hasContext ──────────► brando:Context
    │       ├── brando:usesVerbal ─────► Brando:VerbalIdentity
    │       ├── brando:usesVisual ─────► brando:Visual
    │       ├── brando:usesAudio ──────► Brando:AudioIdentity
    │       ├── brando:hasPolicy ───────────► brando:Policy
    │       ├── brando:hasAutomationRule ───► brando:AutomationRule
    │       └── brando:hasProductCategory ──► brando:BrandedCategory
    │
    ├── brando:BrandExpression
    │   ├── Brando:VerbalIdentity
    │   ├── brando:Visual
    │   └── Brando:AudioIdentity
    │
    ├── brando:Policy
    ├── brando:BrandedCategory
    └── brando:AutomationRule

schema:Event
└── brando:Campaign
````

> **Note:** The diagram is a helpful mental model, but the **normative source of truth** is the JSON-LD vocabulary file and the class-specific reference pages.

---

## 7. Minimal example tying types together

A small example (JSON-LD) to show the main types in play:

```jsonld
{
  "@context": {
    "schema": "https://schema.org/",
    "brando": "https://brandoschema.com/"
  },
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar",
      "@type": "brando:Brand",
      "schema:name": "Northstar Bank",
      "brando:hasContext": {
        "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar/context/retail-chatbot"
      },
      "brando:usesVerbal": {
        "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar/tokens/verbal/default"
      },
      "brando:hasPolicy": {
        "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar/policies/regulated-claims"
      },
      "brando:hasProductCategory": {
        "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar/categories/savings-accounts"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar/context/retail-chatbot",
      "@type": "brando:Context"
    },
    {
      "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar/tokens/verbal/default",
      "@type": "Brando:VerbalIdentity"
    },
    {
      "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar/policies/regulated-claims",
      "@type": "brando:Policy"
    },
    {
      "@id": "https://example.com/brand/northstar/categories/savings-accounts",
      "@type": "brando:BrandedCategory"
    }
  ]
}

Each node’s full set of properties, domains, and ranges is documented on its dedicated type page:

8. Where to go next

For how to model your first graph using these types: → Getting started
For copy-paste examples: → Quickstart (JSON-LD) → Quickstart (YAML)
For per-type details (including recommended patterns and examples): → use the Types menu entries in the navigation.

Brando types overview

1. Identity and context types

1.1 brando:Brand

1.2 brando:Context

2. Expression types (BrandExpression hierarchy)

2.1 brando:BrandExpression

2.2 Brando:VerbalIdentity

2.3 brando:Visual

2.4 Brando:AudioIdentity

3. Governance types

3.1 brando:Policy

3.2 brando:AutomationRule

4. Product and category type

4.1 brando:BrandedCategory

5. Temporal and campaign type

5.1 brando:Campaign

6. High-level type diagram

8. Where to go next

1.1 `brando:Brand`

1.2 `brando:Context`

2.1 `brando:BrandExpression`

2.2 `Brando:VerbalIdentity`

2.3 `brando:Visual`

2.4 `Brando:AudioIdentity`

3.1 `brando:Policy`

3.2 `brando:AutomationRule`

4.1 `brando:BrandedCategory`

5.1 `brando:Campaign`