'Branding' is all the rage with marketing pros: a case of the emperor's new clothes or savvy advertising? (Special Report: Sales and Marketing).

Back in the days of the open frontier, ranchers branded their cattle so they would know theirs from someone else's.

"Branding is really that simple," said Jim Tindaro, president of AM Marketing. "But it has become so philosophical."

It has also become the buzzword in business circles today, said Tom Di Zinno, president of Di Zinno Thompson advertising.

"Three years ago if you mentioned branding, you'd have a sea of dull, empty faces looking back at you. You might as well leave the meeting," Di Zinno said. "Now, everyone is searching for a solution and way out of an upside-down economy. So they are worshiping at the altar of branding.

"If revenue is down, the answer must be branding. People don't like us? Branding. People are scurrying to find a one-step solution. But there isn't one."

Branding shouldn't be confused with other aspects of marketing or selling, said Michael Busselen, senior vice president of Fleishman-Hillard Inc. public relations.

"A big part of our initial challenge is getting clients to clearly define what they're looking for when they say they want to develop or redefine a brand," Busselen said. "The reality may be that they really need to do something else. They may need to get sales support or even redefine their management structure."

But selecting a brand and building brand identity is an essential part of advertising, Di Zinno said.

"Intrinsically, a brand clarifies what the company or product is all about, and if you don't define that, there can be confusion within a company and externally," Di Zinno said.

* Defining

Your Space

To be effective, a brand should be unique and distinguishable, the experts agreed.

"Unique means there is no overlap, yet many brands overlap," Busselen said. He used the example of how car brands have come to overlap because one automaker's advertising is much like that of another.

"Today many buyers who would buy one make of car would buy another," Busselen said.

Tindaro agrees.

"Brands have to occupy a space. For instance, Chevy is a brand, but it's not clearly defined anymore. It's diverse and fuzzy." Tindaro said. "Corvette is a brand. It is clearly defined as a sports car. It occupies that space."

Tindaro also used brewers to exemplify how some may be losing sight of what their brands originally stood for.

"You have Sam Adams and now Sam Adams Light," Tindaro said. "When Sam Adams first came out it was a boutique brew. That's how it was known. It occupied that space.

"So the question the brewer should ask is, 'Will Sam Adams Light cannibalize sales of Sam Adams, or Miller Lite or Bud Light?"'

Brands also need to be flexible and change in keeping with the times.

"A brand has to have legs," Di Zinno said. "It has to grow."

He cited Clorox and Kleenex as examples of brands that grew.

"The brands were big in the 1950s and they're big today because they were refreshed. They were given a new look, but all in keeping with what they stood for."

So what does one look for when selecting an advertising or marketing firm to help in developing or redefining a brand?

"When someone comes in and says they're the branding expert, and they're going to lead you through a branding exercise, the first thing one should ask is, 'What will I have at the end of this that I don't have now. How is it going to make me money," Di Zinno said.

The "branding movement," as Tindaro calls it, has forced people to think about how brands fit into the total marketing picture.

But in the end, "It's all about who is where. How am I going to tell my cows from yours?"

What a company should expect to pay an agency for a branding exercise depends on the size of the company and the market it wants to reach.

"I recently heard of a large, national packaged goods company that spent more on brand assessment that it spent in one year of advertising the brand," Tindaro said.

But a company whose products and services are targeting a local market might expect to pay from $20,000 to $80,000 for an assessment, depending on the level of research involved.

On the lower end, a company might need database analysis to determine its share of a potential market. That type of research comes from existing data.

On the higher end, a company would be after customized research that typically includes focus groups to determine who its best customers are.

"This is the due diligence that's done before a launch," he said. "It's the heavy lifting before companies go out with their marketing strategy."

The experts pointed to the failed dot-com companies as classic examples of what can happen without clearly defined brands.

But Yahoo, by contrast, is an example of a company that emerged successful from the dot-com era, in part because it "did a better job of branding than its competitors," Busselen said.

"Yahoo makes money by selling its service and selling ads and it's known all over the world," he said. "Yahoo is always reinforcing its brand message that it is hip, edgy and irreverent, but valuable as a trusted partner."

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What is the most important thing companies should focus on when employing a guerrilla marketing strategy?

Michael Busselen, senior vice president, Fleishman-Hillard public relations: Defining the market the company wants to reach and then narrowing the focus to specific types of projects aimed at that market. For instance, if you're a manufacturer of sunglasses aimed at the youth market, you might want to place your product in the hands of those who are influential in that market. That's called transferring the cache of the product. But first you have to figure out who those people are, and then make sure they really wear the sunglasses.

Jack Berkman, president, Berkman Communications: You have to define your market and you have to understand it as well. And that's done through research. You research the likes, dislikes, and appetites of that market. For example, we represent Dimension One Spas of Vista, and we are in the process of launching a PR campaign that reaches its potential consumer market. So it was our task to determine what makes them buy spas, what physical requirements, and living habits drive their desire to make that purchase. We studied people's attitudes about health, fitness, and well-being.

Can guerrilla marketing strategies be incorporated with traditional marketing to expand effectiveness of campaigns?

Busselen: Absolutely. This kind of grass roots approach doesn't make sense for all companies, but it can for many. Such an approach can take many different forms, ranging from the edgy to the fairly conservative.

Berkman: Yes. Guerrilla marketing is a strategy that heightens awareness. I think there are a number of product-oriented businesses that need to introduce guerrilla marketing. Take the golf industry, which really is hurting on many levels. Golf-product manufacturers and golf courses could aim their marketing at families looking to spend more quality time together. Golf is a large expenditure of time. So a golf club might offer family plans, and offer them on the days when there are not typically a lot of people on the course. The idea would be to promote golf as an opportunity for a leisurely family get-together, rather than as an elite sport played only by people who can afford to buy memberships.