Is Branding a means or an end?

I love Fast Company magazine, and they write a fair amount about Branding. But even the business press can misunderstand what it is tech branders do.

In an open essay on marketers' obsession with branding (guilty), the editors strip away the hype around "branding" and call it out for what it really is: common sense business strategy. In other words, "to successfully build a brand...is to communicate your key value proposition to the key customer segment in an integrated and consistent way." Or Business 101. Strong brands result from well-run companies that offer distinct products and services. Weak brands result from weak products, shoddy service, and unmet customer expectations.  All true.  Thanks for the compliment.

But then the editors discredit the very discipline they seemed to praise.  They claim that branding gurus sell their services by framing branding as a tactic, not as a result. By making "to brand" a verb, something that can be done, experts can sell it as a means, not as the end it truly is. Huh?  The editors argue that branding is being sold as snake oil these days as a direct result of the decline of traditional advertising and marketing. Marketers are escaping to "a frontier without explicit measurement". Obviously Fast Company is a bit out of touch. 

My take: if every marketing discipline can be negated and dismissed by arguing a return to Business 101, then why do we need business magazines to explain anything NEW to us? Branding IS measurable via simple, repeatable, and relatively inexpensive tactics like audits and surveys and site analytics.  Not to mention the power of Web 2.0 nirvana to pursue NEW strategies affecting customer loyalty, competitive differentiation, and shareholder value. Come on, give us brand marketers a bit more credit!

Marketing is evolving just like every other business discipline. Just because "traditional" methods are in decline, doesn't mean that branders aren't discovering and leveraging new tools like social networking, word of mouth, experiential marketing, branded entertainment, and a host of other emerging methods to win hearts and minds. If this is snake oil, then I'm a distributor.