Google recently released a video about the value of Branding (you can see it Here) that was very telling. It was, essentially, an education about how different companies perceive branding and its value, followed by compliments they paid Google about branding. The education portion was about 2/3rds of the video, which is not surprising because Google is not, and will not in the foreseeable future, be a good platform for branding products.

Branding is a difficult thing to quantify and market, but the essential nature of it is something that is at once familiar yet exciting. Ze Frank has a brilliant video blog about branding that sums up the essence of this concept using Jon-Benet Ramsey as the “brand” example.

The essential problem with branding and Google AdWords has to do with the nature of branding, which is to create an integrated experience that engages as many senses, ideas, and abstractions as possible in conjunction with a product. Google AdWords has an impoverished space for that to happen.

To put it another way, people never branded things through classified ads, and AdWords is a classified ad delivery tool. The fact that it’s the finest classified ad delivery tool in human history doesn’t change this fundamental limitation.

So if it’s not going to work through AdWords ads, how can branding occur in Google? Well, one thing to do is to draw customers to a site who are looking for a topic or product and then use the site itself as a branding mechanism. The question there is whether or not people who click on adwords are too busy looking for specific information and not there just to soak up the brand.

Another possibility is to increase the quality of the branding image of the ads themselves, through banner advertising. This is closer to traditional advertising, but the quality and vividness of the delivered information is still far less than a typical brand platform like a TV commercial.

Ultimately branding in this century is going to come in one of two ways: through social networking and media, which we’ll discuss another time, or, in absence of word of mouth marketing, through the richest available medium, which at this point is still television or quality print. It’s possible that YouTube will create many branding opportunities, but it is very unclear exactly how that model will work in terms of tracking or measuring branding, and ironically enough many of the companies who benefit most from the YouTube viral delivery of content are doing everything they can to turn it off.