People not in marketing and advertising often either have no idea what branding is or think it’s completely worthless.

This is the best way I can describe why it matters.

I throw a single ball to you. It’s pretty each to catch. You throw it back. It’s easy for me to catch. We can go back and forth ad nauseam.

Now let’s say, I throw five balls at you at the same time. How easy is it to catch all of them? In fact, what’s the chance you don’t catch any of them because you can’t focus on what to catch?

What if I just whip a small ball at you? How likely are you going to catch it? And if it hits you instead, how pissed are you going to be?

How about I throw a huge, heavy ball to you? Like a bowling ball. How easy is it to catch? Pretty hard, huh? And only possible if you really want to catch it. If you don’t, you’d likely just avoid it all together.

Branding is the same way. If a brand communicates one succinct message over and over again, it’s easy for the consumer to comprehend. If a brand tries to communicate several messages at once, more than likely the consumer won’t retain anything. If they are so overt and try to cram so much in a quick moment, it’s likely that their message will either go over their heads or be so arrogant that it will turn them off. Or if a brand tries to communicate a bloated, dense, overly complicated message, how can the consumer possibly grasp it?

Branding is both harder than it looks and should be less complicated than we make it out to be. The lesson is simple. Make your brand easy to catch.