OUGD501: Naomi Klein- No Logo's

"Four years ago, when I started to write this book, my hypothesis was mostly based on a hunch. I had been doing some research on university campuses and had begun to notice that many of the students I was meeting were preoccupied with the inroads private corporations were making into their public schools. They were angry that ads were creeping into cafeterias, common rooms, even washrooms; that their schools were diving into exclusive distribution deals with soft-drink companies and computer manufacturers, and that academic studies were starting to look more and more like market research."

Part 1, "No Space," examines the surrender of culture and education to marketing. Part 11, "No Choice," reports on how the promise of a vastly increased array of cultural choice was betrayed by the forces of mergers, predatory franchising, synergy and corporate censorship. And Part 111, "No Jobs," examines the labour market trends that are creating increasingly tenuous relationships to employment for many workers, including self-employment, McJobs and outsourcing, as well as part-time and temp labour.

"Logos, by the force of ubiquity, have become the closest thing we have to an international language, recognized and understood in many more places than English."

I have become convinced that it is in these logo-forged global links that global citizens will eventually find sustainable solutions for this sold planet. This formula, needless to say, has proved enormously profitable, and its success has companies competing in a race toward weightlessness. According to one turn-of-the-century adman, "an advertisement should be big enough to make an impression but not any bigger than the thing advertised." 

In 1923 Barton said that the role of advertising was to help corporations find their soul. Corporations may manufacture products, but what consumers buy are brands. ‘The more advertising there is out there the more brands need to compete to stand out’

The reasoning was that if a "prestige" brand like Marlboro, whose image had been carefully groomed, preened and enhanced with more than a billion advertising dollars, was desperate enough to compete with no-names, then clearly the whole concept of branding had lost its currency. Bargain-conscious shoppers, hit hard by the recession, were starting to pay more attention to price than to the prestige bestowed on their products by the yuppie ad campaigns of the 1980s. The public was suffering from a bad case of what is known in the industry as "brand blindness."

Nike, for example, is leveraging the deep emotional connection that people have with sports and fitness. With Starbucks, we see how coffee has woven itself into the fabric of people's lives, and that's our opportunity for emotional leverage.... A great brand raises the bar-it adds a greater sense of purpose to the experience, whether it's the challenge to do your best in sports and fitness or the affirmation that the cup of coffee you're drinking really matters.