A world of difference. Review on No Logo - Naomi Klein

NO LOGO: Taking Aim Of the Brand Bullies Author: Naomi Klein ?This book is not a cry for ?eradication of logos? from our lives as he title may suggest.? ? Toronto-based author-journalist, Naomi Klein asserts in the Acknowledgements. She discusses at length, the phenomenon of ?corporatism? that has become increasingly dominant of the cultural scene over the past decade.

This entire issue of the branding has created a culture where the logo is above the product it is supposed to sell. People buy Nike and not just a pair of good running shoes. The logo has unified the world and the brand classifies all its followers as ?COOL?, irrespective of the differences in geography, age, cultures and sex. This might not sound like a truly terrible thing but Klein shows that the rise of the brand has led to an unprecedented corporate intrusion into the rights of the people, the world over. The brand has become an integral part of our private domain.

The first section of the book, ?No Space?, deals with the physical and cultural ubiquity of advertising in the modern world. Klein discusses how nearly every new cultural movement of the past decade or so, even those which were implicitly or explicitly anti-commercial, has been targeted and eventually co-opted by large brand names seeking to appear ?Cool?. She details the aggressive tactics used by corporations to ferret out or even crate, the Next Big Fad.

Earlier advertising was about giving information about any product. Then the brands created started connecting with people. Later, the companies started identifying themselves with a ?set of values? as opposed to manufacturers. With the growing influence of the MTV culture in the 1990s, the ?brand? has not just expanded but exploded.

The marketplace is now anyone?s game... as long as they are well funded. This section also discusses the intrusion of brands into the realm of education like Barnes & Noble replacing campus-owned bookstores, Taco Bells and Pizza Huts replacing university cafeterias, and Coke or Pepsi being granted campus-wide exclusive vending rights. In addition the specially designed curricula and the sponsorship of athletic teams raise the issues of academic freedom that we hail as an integral part of an independent world. The second section of No Logo is ?No Choice?. Klein investigates the restrictions imposed on consumer choice by the expansion of the large brand names.

The largest retailer in the world, Wal-Mart, is considered to be a ?category killer? because they enter a region with so much buying power that they almost instantaneously kills their competitors. Thus, by offering a vast section in one store, the company diminishes the consumers? ability to choose from a multiple array of stores resulting in the ?one-stop shopping? phenomenon which boosts the corporation?s income.

Klein shows how the expansion of brand names like Wal-Mart and Starbucks has created a culture where corporations no longer seek merely to reflect and profit off that which is ?cool? but to dictate it as well. In the third section of the book, ?No Jobs?, Naomi Klein projects the fairly horrific effects of the upsurge in branding on the workers all over the world. While the North American and European workers have been laid off or forced to work at temporary, part time jobs, workers in the Third world countries labour for a pittance in unsafe sweatshops.

The rise of the ?uber-brand? has had severe repercussions on the middle- and lower-class people trying to make a living as ?permatemps?. Klein points to a perception that the manufacturing side of business is cumbersome and relatively unprofitable as the root cause of these problems. Klein describes her visit to Cavite EPZ (Export processing zone) in the Philippines. In the middle of the town of Rosario, is a 700-acre walled-in industrial area housing 200 factories that produce goods strictly for the export market. Inside the guarded gates of Cavite, factory workers assemble Nike running shoes, Gap pajamas and IBM computer screens, among the other branded products.

The vast majority of the workers are young women who have migrated long distances to work inside Cavite. They work 12-hour long days for military-style supervisors that are often abusive, at wages that are typically below the legal minimum wage of $6 per day. The shed-like factories are cheaply constructed and exude a sense of temporariness. ''They said to me over and over again - please tell people what it's like for us. And at the same time their greatest fear was that I was going to go home and tell people to boycott these companies and that they were all going to lose their jobs so there was this tremendous uncertainty and confusion about what to do.''

In the fourth section of the book, Klein deals with the rising tide of opposition to brand-based invasions of space, choice, and employment opportunities. She studies three specific cases in which large corporations along with the association of the brands they promote have got their wrists slapped. She examines Nike, which has been repeatedly beaten up over the sweatshop issue, whose presence in Nigeria and their suspected influence in the execution of Ken Siro-Wiwa and McDonald?s who made the disastrous decision to sue a couple of pamphleteers for libel and ended up being humiliated for the longest trial in British history.

The book gives an insight into the world of brand marketing. Part of its attraction is that Klein never goes over-the-top when criticizing the big bad corporate world. She backs her arguments with intellectual reasoning and examples. The anger is focused and rational. She isn?t blind to the inconsistencies on her side in her fight; she is even hard on Adbusters magazine in one section... For those in the field of marketing, this book makes an interesting read. For those who are not, it becomes a must-read.