I'm a linguist, not a communications expert. But I surrounded myself with the right people and saw the light. Pain-free branding Before I started at L'Oréal in 2004, I thought branding was something painful that farmers did to cattle. Obviously now after over a decade in beauty and cosmetics I've a much better grasp of the concept, but my experience has been understanding concepts in one language, and transforming them into concepts that work just as well in another language.