5 Reasons to Start Bidding on Branded Terms
Here is a great post giving a run down on the arguments for bidding in your branded terms in AdWords. I’ve had the debate several times in my own career and I think this article does a nice job explaining some of the pros to the strategy.
Regarding people’s arguments against because its a waste of the marketing budget; I’ve always found the branded ad groups to be significantly cheaper to run. Its minuscule and I believe offers way more upside than not.