"Brands Are Good For You" Says The Economist

Von · 08-09-2001 5:41pm #1

Short Extract:
The truth is that people like brands. They not only simplify choices and guarantee quality, but they add fun and interest. “In technocratic and colourless times, brands bring warmth, familiarity and trust,” says Peter Brabeck, boss of Nestlé. They also have a cultish quality that creates a sense of belonging. “In an irreligious world, brands provide us with beliefs,” says Mr Olins. “They define who we are and signal our affiliations.”

Naomi Klein's response to the editor:

To the editors of The Economist
In your happy little leader "Brands are good for you," you quote a passage from my book No Logo referring to ours as "a fascist state where we all salute the logo and have little opportunity for criticism because our newspapers, television stations, Internet servers, streets and retail spaces are all controlled by multinational corporate interests." By taking these words out of context, you have intentionally distorted my meaning to suit your own weak argument.

As I pointed out to your reporter, the very next sentences in the book directly refute this vision of brand totalitarianism. The passage goes on to say: "there is good reason for alarm. But a word of caution: we may be able to see a not-so-brave new world on the horizon, but that doesn't mean we are already living in Huxley's nightmare... Instead of an airtight formula, [corporate censorship] is a steady trend, clearly intensified by synergy and the mounting stakes of brand-name protection, but riddled with exceptions. the shift that is taking place is at once less totalitarian and more dangerous."

When asked by your reporter whether ours is a corporate fascist state, I replied that I am too optimistic to take such a view: if humans being really are compliant brand drones, why are they taking to the streets in the hundreds of thousands, from Seattle to Genoa? Your publication, on the other hand, appears to believe that political activism is unnecessary since we apparently can rid the world of corporate abuses simply by shopping for better brands. Sorry, but I'm afraid I'm not quite *that* optimistic.

I never expected The Economist to provide a nuanced or even accurate portrayal of the political ideas in No Logo -- or, for that matter, of the goals of the global movements against corporate-driven globalization (of which I am not the "spokesman" as you absurdly claim). However, I hope you will correct this one glaring distortion for your readers.

Sincerely,
Naomi Klein

SantaHoe · 09-09-2001 8:16am

Originally posted by Von
“In an irreligious world, brands provide us with beliefs,”

*Worships his box of Special K*
*lights another candle*
What a crock.

Von · 09-09-2001 8:39am

Your underpants have the answer, not cereal. You sir, are a heretic so I'm afraid I'll have to twat you.

swiss · 09-09-2001 2:46pm

Brands do indeed add a sense of stability and familiarity in a world of increasingly diverse products and aggressive marketing policies. Everything from the cereal we eat in the morning to the clothes we wear is dominated by it's 'brand'. We use it as a barometer of quality, which, as we are so assured by years of advertising, is thoroughly excellent.

The trouble is that one does have to pay for the 'luxury' of feeling that little bit more confident about the content or quality of the goods or services we are buying on a daily basis. Shopping becomes an increasingly thoughtless process as we grab what is both closest to hand and most familiar to us.

In economics (what I studied for the leaving) we are taught that advertising is an inefficient use of scarce resources, since with an efficient use of those resources, a manufacturer can produce more of a good, and at a lower price, which is of course beneficial to the consumer. Hence, though we might feel more comfortable chewing on Cheerio's every morning, our very attitudes help to perpetrate this corporate culture of product recognition, which helps to strenghten the very market conditions that many among us would like to see changed, with a greater emphasis placed on competition. The solution? Concentrate more on products that guarantee competitive value and quality, and less on those that merely play up these traits through advertising. Now, anyone for a pint of Dutch gold?

DadaKopf · 10-09-2001 1:39am

There's nothing wrong with 'brands' as such - they're merely signifiers - signs for the identifications of products in much the same way a 'Hoover' is actually a vacuum cleaner.

However, that logic has progressed far beyond mere signifier. Branding has brought commodification to the point where completely unessential commodities are pressed on us as 'essential'. They can't exist without us but in the same way, we are told we must have them or we are nothing. Human identity and worth is actually (as unusual as it sounds) kind of at stake. Modern branding has brought about a homogonisation of the individual.

When, in the early 20th century, capitalism overreached itself, when material need and necessity had been achieved through industrial production, employers had to allow workers enough freedom so it could move to the next stage; the system was going to implode if the emphasis wasn't turned away from material neccessity into material 'wish'.

As Greil Marcus in his book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century said:

"The worker had to be granted a measure of surplus value, of free income and free time - otherwise capitalism would overreach itself and collapse. The secret fetishism of the commodity was that the commodity could talk, it could seem human, it could turn human beings into things. ... You are nothing unless you have everything."

Modern branding degrades everything especially our own individuality. As soon as an alternative lifestyle emerges a little, it's pounced upon by companies and exploited by everyone, it's given the same value as everything else and it becomes essentially worthless. People are willing to be fooled into thinking this is neccessary and indispensible and what it destroys is each person's right to be an individual and to enjoy something which can't be sold and which can't be renamed for monetary gain at the hands of cynical, greedy number punchers.

Think of the recent Bob Dylan concert in Kilkenny: it wasn't the "Bob Dylan" concert, it was "The Smithwick's Source featuring Bob Dylan". Think about it.

All of that is completely contrary to this:
"... to change the world, one had to think about changing life. Instead of examining institutions and classes, structures of economic production and social control, one had to think about 'moments' - moments of love, hate, poetry, pity, fury, peace of mind - those tiny epiphanies, Lefebvre said, in which the absolute possibilities and temporal limits of anyone's existence were properly revealed. The richness of poverty of any social formation could be judged only on the terms of these evanescences; they passed out of consciousness as if they had never been but in their instants, they contained the whole of life."

and:

"Hausmann set an autonomy of pleasure. A stroll in the park, a Sunday on the riverbank - a spectacles, such things represented free money, free time: freedom."

- Greil Marcus on Henri Lefebvre and Georges Eugene Hausmann, Lipstick Traces

I know which I choose. I want to be different. Branding creates the illusion of difference but instead it creates a kind of labrynthine system of bondage. Rich or poor, we're all a slave to the system and branding has become central to this fetishism not just of the commodity but of actual human experiences.

One last quote and link:

"People are beginning to define themselves in terms of objects and commodities and experiences and memories more than before, collective or otherwise. In this sense, we've truly entered the reality of the sign; people don't seem so content to foster memories as actualities, we have to own something to prove it to ourselves that we were there - or not, as the case may be."

From monkeybomb.com - Urban Outfitters is a Load if Sh1te

JustHalf · 10-09-2001 4:08pm

And the best bit about this article?

Not only is it the leading article (advertised on the cover) but the cover is a mockup of the NoLogo cover, but "Pro"Logo(r).

The pun police will be arriving at the designers door to deal out the justice.

DadaKopf · 14-09-2001 2:07am

See? That's what I mean. The branding of anti-branding. Nothing is sacred. Everything is disposeable. Makes me sick.

This thread is much more worth discussing.

amp · 15-09-2001 12:34pm

I feel deeply religious about Pepsi Max, either that or I'm addicted to the cafeine.

And if Pepsi Max is my god then cigarettes, alcohol and chocolate are my prophets.

amp - who must now make a holy pilgrimage to the shops.

Manach · 15-09-2001 10:57pm

"Consumers are like roaches"
I know I'm taking this out of context but gee-whiz, that really hurts my feelings

Still, the article does in places give the public more credit than Klein, in it's ability to cut through branding fairy-dust.

Final note, my first time reading the Economist - no funnys in the back page, disappointing.

"Brands Are Good For You" Says The Economist

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