… [M]uch of No Logo is devoted to documenting the ways small groups of committed activists retaliated by turning the power of the brand back on itself. But 10 years later, the rule of the brand is more entrenched than ever, largely thanks to lessons learned from a close reading of No Logo.
The book devotes a great deal of attention to the various strategies of anti-brand activism that were coming into play at the time. Joining the old-school consumer boycott were newfangled techniques such as guerrilla marketing, culture jamming (ad parodies, basically), and Reclaim the Streets initiatives aimed at reversing the “commodification and criminalization of street culture.”
However edgy or subversive these strategies once might have seemed, every single one is now a standard part of the tool kit of every advertising agency and brand manager. You think culture jamming is subversive? Kenneth Cole has been jamming its own advertising for years, embroidering its campaigns with slogans and quotations addressing topics such as AIDS, homelessness, gun control, and same-sex marriage. Guerrilla marketing might once have been a cool way of getting attention for your alternative band or performance-art installation, but today, thanks to the viral capabilities of Twitter and YouTube, the technique is used to sell everything from fried chicken to the latest Hollywood blockbuster.
via Full Pundit
No Logic, shurely?!
Followed inevitably by Schlock Doctrine.
Nice article. Looks like some Tea Party types have read the manifesto, eh?
Consumers/taxpayers/voters get inured to the brand hype. We are not as dumb as big government/corporate central planners think we are. Got that MSM? Goldman Sachs? Election War Room Strategists?
Don’t forget “green washing”.
Once upon a time, environmentalism was a akin to anti-corporatism. And it still is to some extent, but now corporations spend huge bucks to convince everyone that they are greener than Suzuki.
Corporations will play any game you want. Sneaky bastards.
Marketing people figure out how things work and they do it PDQ and pretty well.
Read “The Hidden Persuaders” a little gem from the early 60s.
And teach your kids.
What the author of “No Logo” fails to a) understand, or b) admit, is the “social infrastructure” she advocates for doesn’t exist in reality. Socialism & Barak Obama ARE brands! That’s it, there is no “there” there. So the question is, as with all socialists: is she ingenuous, or is she an uninformed dimwit?
Indiana, I choose door #2!
ommag – i still have a copy of vance packard’s analysis of 5th avenue.
and i also recall the highly sucessful colors of benneton.
sentiment and emotion – why would anyone buy fritz lang jumpsuits/overalls if offered something from carnaby st.?
naomi klein is a partisan (and proud of it) and at one point i’m sure she considered herself as part of the “vanguard”. i did not “buy” her ndp-drenched perpspective then and wonder what she thinks about it now when she’s sitting around the pool waiting for another curtain call.
Three paragraphs in, I was LOST, and worse yet… bored.
Get to the point……. fast.
Well e.paul, he is critiquing an author, her two books- a span of ten years involving the leftist anti-capitalistic stance; a co-existing eco/ethical growing movements’ achievements or not of their goals; and the corporate/consumer reactions to each ones push on the other. And found it amusing that her first book is used as a ‘how to guide’ by advertising and marketing experts widely used today to counter the anti-logo/brand groups in getting their brand/logo/image/product out, just what she claims she’s mostly against – the delicious irony….so guess you can tell I found it quite engrossing reading actually.
Hey, sorry about that, eastern paul. Next time we’ll get Dr. Seuss to put you together a synopsis on audiobook. Cool?
I will not, will not buy this brand!
I must, I must take a stand!
Authenticity? Eccentricity!
Socialism’s my native land!