Anais Nin was a Cuban-French author who became famous for her published journals.

Years before branding emerged as a business and marketing discipline, Ms. Nin offered this insight:

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

In creating an engaging and hard to forget product, the process of branding must reveal things as they actually exist in the real world, rather than how a product owner sees them.

For many organizations and their CEOs, this concept remains an often difficult, counterintuitive, and yet essential idea to grasp.

The market is littered with examples of otherwise certified smart people who failed in this understanding.

Before the emergence of the contemporary discipline of branding, there were some who intuitively understood this basic principle, each ahead of their time.

Including Anais Nin.