Naomi Klein: 'No Logo' Revisited

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Naomi Klein: 'No Logo' Revisited

By Naomi Klein, Picador Press. Posted November 21, 2009.

In the new introduction to the re-release of her classic book, 'No Logo,' Klein explores how ad culture has thrived and adapted in the past decade.




The following is from the new introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition of Naomi Klein's classic book, "No Logo (Picador, 2009)"


As I write this introduction, thinking about how much branding has changed in ten years, a couple of developments seem worth mentioning off the top. In May of 2009, Absolut Vodka launched a limited-edition line called "Absolut No Label." The company's global public relations manager Kristina Hagbard explains that, "for the first time we dare to face the world completely naked. We launch a bottle with no label and no logo, to manifest the idea that no matter what's on the outside, it's the inside that really matters ... We encourage people to think twice about their prejudice, because in an Absolut world, there are no labels."

A few months later, Starbucks tried to avoid being judged by its own label by opening its first unbranded coffee shop in Seattle, called 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea. This "stealth Starbucks" (as the anomalous outlet immediately became known) was decorated with "one-of-a-kind" fixtures and customers were invited to bring in their own music for the stereo system as well as their own pet social causes -- all to help develop what the company called "a community personality." Customers had to look hard to find the small print on the menus: "inspired by Starbucks." Tim Pfeiffer, a Starbucks senior vice president, explained that unlike the ordinary Starbucks outlet that used to occupy the very same piece of retail space, "This one is definitely a little neighborhood coffee shop." After spending two decades blasting its logo onto 16,000 stores worldwide, Starbucks was now trying to escape its own brand.

Clearly the techniques of branding have both thrived and adapted since I published No Logo. But in the past ten years I have written very little about developments like these. I realized why while reading William Gibson's 2003 novel Pattern Recognition. The book's protagonist, Cayce Pollard, is allergic to brands, particularly Tommy Hilfiger and the Michelin Man. So strong is this "morbid and sometimes violent reactivity to the semiotics of the marketplace" that she has the buttons on her Levi's jeans ground smooth so that there are no corporate markings. When I read those words, I immediately realized that I had a similar affliction. It was not one of those conditions that you are born with but one that develops, over time, due to prolonged overexposure. I didn't used to be allergic to brands. As I confess in the pages of this book, as a child and teenager I was almost obsessively drawn to them. But writing No Logo required four years of total immersion in ad culture -- four years of watching and rewatching Super Bowl ads, scouring Advertising Age for the latest innovations in corporate synergy, reading soul-destroying business books on how to get in touch with your personal brand values, attending corporate seminars on brand management, making excursions to Niketowns, to monster malls, to branded towns. And watching some of the worst movies ever made while taking notes in the dark on product placement. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/media/144106/naomi_klein%3A_%27no_logo%27_revisited

[FormerDittoHead]

1. "Branding" has been a way Corp America has disguised creating oligopolies and avoiding taxes.

The whole "branding" thing started when Disney went to buy ABC.

At the time, questions were raised if a company which produced media, should be able to buy a company which distributed it. The line wasn't so invisible at the time because restrictions were placed upon many companies in media, such as movie production companies being restricted to own only so many of its own theaters.

During the Reagan Bush days, however, what was good for Wall Street was SUPPOSED to be good for Main Street, so the meme of the day was turned around that Disney wasn't a movie company, it was an ENTERTAINMENT company, and for it to own ABC or whatever was logical. The more or less threw the floodgates open.

The logo/trademark itself grew in value. This was for two reasons. First off, unlike patents or even copyrights, whose lives have been extended to ALMOST forever, the lives of trademarks ARE forever, as long as a given entity owns it and is willing to protect it.

The whole culture of "branding" evolved, allowing corporate gobble-dee-goop consultants weave this whole mythos about the value of the brand (at least to consumers).

It's implied that customers will recognize the logo/trademark as having value and gravitate toward that item. This is true (I like LG electronics, for example, but it cuts both ways (I no longer would consider buying RCA, Olympus or Phillips, after repeated bad experiences).

The upshot was that instead of Starbucks selling everything related to coffee, which would be logical, tangential offshoots like the one Ms. Klein refers to the in OP happen.

But the *REAL* benefit of trademarks was detailed by David Cay Johnson:
http://bit.ly/7DZBvq :



So now we get DIAPERS with Disney characters on them, even though the logos have NOTHING to do the final buying decision. While Klein comments on how their use affects our culture, the fact is that they do it to shift taxes onto US.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. Buy local. Buy hand-made. Buy good stuff and hang onto it

All of this shit has been made possible by a corporate strategy of getting people to buy disposable stuff.

Even the "good" stuff today is crap.


Buy hand-made or make it yourself and hang onto it. It's amazing how inexpensive it is in the long run.

And in 150 years, it'll be worth a fortune on Antiques Road Show!




TG

[glitch]

3. Crap! Alternet pulled the article. nt

[grasswire]

4. why would they do that?

It sounds very interesting.