Received a call the other day from a branding expert, who runs a very successful branding competition that enlists judges from leading agencies in the country. She called our agency simply to say hello and to tell us how much she admired our work, our blogs and our start-up story. There was even some talk about doing some work together for some of her current and future endeavorers.

This was very exciting news for us, but especially for me because whenever I’m in need of inspiration for a branding project, I always turn to her website for tons of great rebranding work and insight into each project. Her website and competition is one I’ve admired for years and it’s totally an honor for her to reach out to us. Her simple phone call made my day and I wanted to share the good news with one of my biggest supporters, my dad.

However, it dawned on me, that for my dad to fully appreciate the good news and to satisfy his inquisitive nature, I’m going to have to explain to him what branding is. For people not in the creative industry, it’s hard to fully grasp what branding is, as there are so many varying definitions, interpretations and beliefs on the subject. I needed a way to really simplify my explanation and make it easy to digest. So I came up with this....

Branding is like a person.

No two people on this planet are the same. Everyone has distinct characteristics that make them who they are, which when thrown into the public arena, those characteristics help the public determine if you’re likable, cool, smart, dull, powerful, etc... Hell, even twins have their own unique style of fashion, unique personalities and a slew of other factors to help them stand out from each other. A company’s brand should be no different.

Think of the logo as the face of a company. It’s the first thing you see when interacting with a person. This initial interaction helps you determine many things about this person/company. Does he look like an interesting person? Does he look kind and caring? Does he look like a homicidal maniac? Would you want to run into him again? I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

The wardrobe is next and I’d compare this to the color palette, typographic style, imagery style and overall look of the company. Compare a person in a business suit to someone wearing t-shirt and jeans. Your reaction to each person is going to be different and affect how you interact with them. The two could even be those twins I mentioned before, and even though their face is the same, depending on your personality, you’re going to make initial judgments about each, which could be the beginning or never was of a relationship.

So the company has a face and a wardrobe, their is still one critical factor missing that will help determine the company’s brand, the person’s personality. Each person goes through numerous experiences that help shape who they become. Did he come from nothing and build himself into a mogul? Did he work hard his whole life slowly climbing the corporate ladder only to realize he could run his own business? Did he wake up one day and realize he couldn’t spend another day in a cubicle? These experiences help shape a company’s voice and how it will communicate to the public. As every individual in the world has a unique way of speaking and unique experiences that mold them into who they are, so should a company’s brand.

So there we have it, a simple way to explain to my father what branding is. Branding is the characteristics, personality and history that makes a person who they are, but for companies. After explaining this to him, he seemed to actually get it.