No Logo: Taking Aim At The Brand Bullies

Quick - how many brand names or logos are visible on the outside of your clothing? Your computer equipment? Have you ever noticed a Red Hat bumper sticker? Warren A. Layton sent us an interesting review of No Logo which will have you examining your surroundings for just such signs. Depending on your bent, you may also be reminded of the character Francisco d'Anconia in Atlas Shrugged when he declares "The coats-of-arms of our day are to be found on billboards and in the ads of popular magazines."

No Logo: Taking Aim At The Brand Bullies author Naomi Klein pages 490 publisher Knopf (Canada), Picador USA (US), Flamingo (UK) rating 9 reviewer Warren A. Layton ISBN 0-312-20343-8 summary The author takes on the The Big Brands from many different angles.This goes beyond just buying "sweatshop-free" clothes to such issues as reclaiming public space and attacking corporate manipulation.

The Scenario

At first glance, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies may seem like the same-old rant against Nike. Upon reading the introduction, I realized that this was something more powerful and more interesting. The author picks apart the nature of these brand bullies to give us a better understanding of their mentality, what they hope to achieve and what exactly they're doing to accomplish all their goals. Obviously, some names will come up quite often (such as Nike, Disney, The Gap, Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Microsoft, just to name a few). However, she doesn't just stop at "Nike is bad because of the sweatshop labor practices" - she analyzes the company's marketing strategies, its sponsorship deals, its "charity" work and its influence in the classroom. Klein takes a look at each scenario from many different angles and backs up each of her observations with a multitude of examples and real world experiences.

The book is divided into four sections: 'No Space,' 'No Choice,' 'No Jobs' and 'No Logo.' 'No Space' is about the cluttering of our public spaces with ads; 'No Choice' describes different tactics used by big-name brands to drive independent retailers out of business; 'No Jobs' takes aim at sweatshop labour but with the corporations' "Brand, not products!" mentality in mind (it also includes details of Klein's trip to an Export Processing Zone just south of Manila); finally, 'No Logo' documents the global movement against branding and many of the organizations and people behind the revolt. It is also noted that while globalization is considered by many to be Pure Evil (tm), it has allowed this movement against multinational corporations to spread across the globe much more quickly and efficiently.

What's Bad?

To be honest, there is very little that I didn't like about this book. However, there was one little thing that I did notice, but it was not detrimental to my reading enjoyment.

Although my opinion is obviously biased, I was disappointed that there was no mention of Free Software or some other not-for-profit projects that benefit everyone. I find that many of the corporate ties within the Free Software community are very much along the lines of Klein's notion of an ideal balance between corporations and communities. It should be noted, however, that the most recent example in the book is dated June 1999, so it's possible that the word "Linux" hadn't reached Klein's ears by that time (except for some of the IPO hype).

When Klein starts talking about rebellious movements across North America, Europe and beyond, I was hoping for something like Free Software. In other words, I wanted to read about some sort of alternative that is being offered by these anti-brand revolutionaries. What I found were Adbusters that go around defacing billboards and ravers that take over downtown streets for day-long parties. I'm not disputing the message that these movements began with; they both are tools that are being used to reclaim some of the public space. In the end, though, that's all they are: tools. They can be easily used for the wrong reasons by the wrong people. Fortunately, Klein is quick to point this out and doesn't shy away from pointing out both good and bad aspects of each.

What's Good?

Klein's fluid writing style really shines throughout this book and her arguments are sharp and well targeted. The result is a a text that holds together extremely well. Even when Klein seems to be going off on a tangent, she is really just taking a different perspective on the issue of branding. Dividing the book into four sections also allows for great reading, because both author and reader can focus on a specific issue in each part. This encapsulation is almost flawless; Klein manages to tackle each individual chapter with different arguments without ever losing sight of her primary goal.

Another impressive aspect of this book is the sheer number of examples that Klein discusses. Each chapter is packed with examples that support her claims, with each one being examined quite thoroughly. The amount of research that went into this book is nothing short of phenomenal (although there is no shortage of corporate horror stories these days). Klein's interviews with workers in the Cavite export processing zone vividly illustrate the difference between what we see in stores and what happens behind the scenes. None of this is news to us: we have all read about Nike's sweatshop labour practices. However, this book digs further to attempt to uncover the true motivations behind these practices and how they are still possible despite the public's disapproval.

I found that each section contained one exceptional chapter. In 'No Space,' "The Branding of Learning" (chapter 4) is simply wonderful, especially for people still in school (like myself). You'll read about grade school kids making Nike sneakers as "an educational experience" and a 19-year-old student being suspended for wearing a Pepsi shirt on "Coke Day." In 'No Choice,' "Corporate Censorship" (chapter 8) should be of interest to most Slashdot readers. Much of this probably won't be as shocking to you, but it's really pleasant to read it from somone on "the outside" that truly gets it. In "No Jobs," "The Discarded Factory" (chapter 9) offers the same old shocking facts about sweatshop labour with a fresh perspective which only makes the situation seem worse. The whole "No Logo" section is wonderful, with the exceptions stated above in "What's Bad?"

So What's In It For Me?

If you have been paying close attention to the big brands and some of their dubious business practices, much of the examples won't be news to you. Some of the events that are described have already been covered by investigative TV reports such as 20/20 and Dateline as well as many major magazines. However, I still think you would enjoy the points that Klein raises and how she ties everything together into a well thought-out package.

If you are like me and you're not as familiar with these events, this book is a must read. It will guide you through some of the events surrounding Nike, Disney, The Gap and other multinationals throughout the past decade and let you know where we stand today. Students should especially like "No Space," especially with the commercialisation on campus and in the classroom.

For more information, I suggest that you take a look at the following Web sites:

• nologo.org: The official site with lots of links to organizations mentioned in the book.
• http://www.nikebiz.com/labor/nologo_let.shtml: Nike's response to No Logo (dated March 8th 2000)

Table of Contents

1. No Space - New Branded World
2. No Space - The Brand Expands: How the Logo Grabbed Center Stage
3. No Space - Alt.Everything: The Youth Market and the Marketing of Cool
4. No Space - The Branding of Learning: Ads in Schools and Universities
5. No Space - Patiarchy Gets Funky: The Triumph of Identity Marketing
6. No Choice - Brand Bombing: Franchises in the Age of the Superbrand
7. No Choice - Mergers and Synergy: The Creation of Commercial Utopias
8. No Choice - Corporate Censorship: Barricading the Branded Village
9. No Jobs - The Discarded Factory: Degraded Production in the Age of the Superbrand
10. No Jobs - Threats and Temps: From Working for Nothing to "Free Agent Nation"
11. No Jobs - Breeding Disloyalty: What Goes Around, Comes Around
12. No Logo - Culture Jamming: Ads Under Attack
13. No Logo - Reclaim the Streets
14. No Logo - Bad Moon Rising: The New Anticoporate Activism
15. No Logo - The Brand Boomerang: The Tactics of Brand-Based Campaigns
16. No Logo - A Tale of Three Logos: The Swoosh, the Shell and the Arches
17. No Logo - Local Foreign Policy: Students and Communities Join the Fray
18. No Logo - Beyond the Brand: The Limits of Brand-Based Politics
19. Conclusion - Consumerism Versus Citizenship: The Fight for Global Commons

Purchase this book at Fatbrain.

Comments

Re:Yea! I loved Atlas Shrugged!

[Golias]

Actually, there was a very good book a couple years ago (I wish I could remember the title) about how all this "individualism" and "anti-corporatism" was the direct and intended result of corporate campaigns of the 50's and 60's.

Specifically, they mentioned the Volkswagon Beetle as one of the products behind introducing the "hippie" philosophy to the zeitgeist. Record companies and other medea corporations provided a lot of the drive as well. We can hear echo's of it in Apple Computer's "for the rest of us" and "think different" ads, and in products like Fruitopia, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and CD's from Geffin Records.

Gather any 10 "anti-corporate" Unix geeks at random, and 8 of them will be wearing Doc Martins. Rage Against The Machine fans pay through the nose for "Free Leonard Peltier" T-shirts. The rise of body piercing has created whole now markets for selling jewelry. Homeopathy and "alternative medicine" rakes in millions by getting people to trust their herbalist more than their family doctor.

The thesis of the book boiled down to the fact that there really is no revolution, but it is being marketed anyway.

Counterculture, as it exists today, was invented to sell us stuff.

Really do take a look around...

[xTown]

...and you'll be stunned at what you see. Go to a mall, for example. Or a high school or college campus. Start counting all of the walking billboards you see: people wearing clothes that very prominently display the name of the designer or the store they bought it from. Tommy Hilfiger t-shirts and pants are a prime example around here. Gap. Old Navy. Yeah, Nike. Guess.

Stop counting when you reach a hundred. It won't take long.

This is all fscked up, AFAIC. People are paying companies large sums of money (ever bought a Tommy t-shirt?) for the "privilege" of advertising for them. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Sounds like an interesting book. I'll have to pick it up tonight.

Class Shibboleths

[goliard]

Interesting. There is a very important thesis in the book Class by Paul Fussell which pertains here.

He presents a paradigm of American society in which there are 12 social classes, which are as much cultures as economic brackets. One of the many things he discusses is the idea of "legible clothing", that is to say, clothing with words printed on it. Displaying the brand names on your clothing is a way of asserting which social class you belong to, or wish to belong to.

In the four lower classes, "impressive" brands are largely inaccessible because of cost. However, when a member of the lower classes can afford clothing of such a brand, s/he gravitates towards clothing which flaunts its brand, in as big, bold letters and icons as it possibly can; this communicates to other members of the same class "I am more wealthy than you".

The upper four classes prefer clothing with either no brands apparent or extremely subtle branding. Wearing prominent logos is vulgar. Also, this turns the identification of the brand into a test of the viewer's class: it allows the wearer to test whether they are dealing with someone familiar enough with, say, Versace gowns as to be able to tell one when they see one.

It is the middle three classes who consume "designer" and "branded" clothing the most. They can afford it, and they are often insecure about their class status: there is nothing worse for someone in the middle classes than to be mistaken for someone in the lower classes. Wearing designer jeans, e.g., back in the 1980s, was a way for middle class school girls especially to differentiate themselves from their lower class classmates.

For an absolutely fascinating (IMHO) look at this, check out this Salon article "Consumed by Consumption".

At any point, the reason I mention this is two-fold (beyond the obvious one that it might amuse you, gentle readers).

First, if you've ever aspired to either climb the class lader or merely become better at your Sherlock Holmes-style disguises, this provides a very nifty little heuristic. Only one part of many, but a vital part.

Second, brand watching -- wrt people's clothing -- doesn't merely tell you the penetration of corporatism into private life. It also is an at-a-glance rough measure of the class demographics in a social environment. Analysts and pundits are always saying things like "the middle class is disappearing" etc. Well, go collect your own qualitative data. See for yourself what the class distrubution is like in your area.

----------------------------------------------

Quick Test For You

[Hrunting]

How many companies can you identify by their logo alone (omit word logos, like 'Microsoft' and 'IBM'). How many "open-source" software companies can you identify by their logo alone? How many "open-source" web sites? How many games?

The 'no logo' idea is a noble one, but one which will ultimately fail. It's not just marketing, but recognition. Man has been doing it for as long as we've been painting animals on our shields so that other armies will know who we are. Self-identification is one of the key pieces of human nature and what we now call 'logos' are simply another manifestation of our nature.

Logoff

[Protocull]

Logos are not simply about branding. They are aspirational, they are a shorthand for what the wearer/user wants others to think of them, and what they would like to think of themselves. If I buy Nike, it's because I want to feel sporty and a bit rebellious because I like their guerilla marketing tactics. If I buy Prada, it's because I want to feel fashionable and to be admired by people who recognise the brand. If somebody doesn't recognise it, then by definition I don't care about impressing them. It makes me feel like an insider. If I use linux instead of M*crosoft, it may be because it's a superior operating system - or it may be because I want to be in with you guys. And you can bet that I'll be buying a tux t-shirt over at Think Geek and will wear that logo with pride. But guess what - Andover get the money! Not Linus or the other open sourcerers! It's not just the simple spread of the brand that marketing spends all that money on, it's building the image to go with it. And we can kid ourselves that we are too sophisticated or cynical to be manipulated by the aspirational aspect - but we do it every time we make a purchasing decision.

Re:Yea! I loved Atlas Shrugged!

[Bearpaw]

I see you've bought into the silly idea that "advertising-supported = free". It's not free, it's just paid for with a different currency. If that's the way you prefer to pay, knock yourself out, but you should at least have some idea of the price you're paying.

What exactly are we objecting to?

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

What EXACTLY is the objection to, for instance, people wearing brand names?

The cliqueishness? Because Slashdot has got that in spades. In fact, EVERY community has this property.

The customer exploitation? They make Nike seem cool so you want the stuff and then charging you up the wazoo? But surely the problem here is not Nike, but the purchaser, yes? We're not talking about a monopoly situation: there is more than one show manufacturer.

The ubiquity of advertisements? I can understand this objection, but writing a book or even starting a boycott against a company is pointless. Advertising works. More advertising (than you competitors) works better. Therefore companies are in an arms race to each do more advertising than everyone else.

But I might also note that "corporate pigs" are not the only offenders in these regards. For instance, next time you are outside count the number of "DARE to keep kids off drugs" bumper stickers, t-shirts, painted minivans, etc you see. Many non-profit organizations (or even non-organizations) do the same thing.
--
Wanna hook MAPI clients to your Tru64/AIX/Linux server?

Re:What exactly are we objecting to?

[Protocull]

Advertising works. More advertising (than you competitors) works better. Therefore companies are in an arms race to each do more advertising than everyone else.

Thank god it works, it's what keeps all this cool free content going on the web. I like my free email, my favourite sites, my free newsletters. Without brands, there'd be no free TV or radio either. And we can easily choose not to buy logos.

Designer Brand as Sexual Display

[codemonkey_uk]

As any good biologist will tell you, it is the cost of a sexual display that makes it attractive. What you say when you buy Nike, Gucci, Prada and the rest is "Look at me! I can afford expensive clothing! I have so much money I can throw it away!"

This is the same as the peacocks tail, and is the product of sexual selection. The thoery goes, a male with a big tail must be tougher than an apparently equal male with a smaller tail, because life is more difficalt if you have a large tail, therfore to have survived with this handicap you must be a healthy mate.

Now look around you. Do cheap brands make such a big deal of their logos? No. That because they don't carry the prestege of the expensive brands. The (sub conciose) thinking behing it is "Damnit, if I'm paying Prada prices, I want people to know it."

Ironicly the proliferation of a brand reduces its value. Campri Ski anyone? (Or was that a UK thing?)

Thad

Give them Squeak

[X]

Squeak is your answer. It a free version of Smalltalk available on whatever platform you want. It's got excellent support for multimedia stuff, and it's nice and graphical. Kids get very immediate support. Smalltalk is actually very easy for kids to learn (they've introduced it in kindergarden classes) and allows them to define their own language and functions. Furthermore, it would instill in them good OO development practices from the beginning. OO is actually very intuitive to young kids, just not to programmers who've been hacking away at functional programing for n years. ;-)

Don't dismiss VB

[vlax]

Like many of the others, I started out in BASIC on an ancient 8-bit machine. But what really got me started in serious programming was scripting languages and VB.

I realise VB is an incoherent mess, and perhaps Delphi is better (I've never used it) but the biggest advantage of VB is that you can quickly and easily produce visual applications. You can see results, right there on your PC, even with simple projects. Learning something more structured like C involves having to deal with too many complicated issues of programming theory and structure, and unless you're willing to sit through complicated stuff like X or Windows GUI coding, all you'll get is some boring text program.

There may be better ways to do this than VB. Tcl/Tk for example, or tkperl, or even javascript/HTML. But I think the place to start with children is something that produces highly visual GUI output in short order.

Re:Python - designed for teaching

[Rainy]

I absolutely agree that python is perfect for studying programming -
it's easy and at the same time it'll scale down to C. It has been
said that it bridges the gap between RAD languages like perl and
serious languages like C.
One interesting project based on Python is 'computer programming for
everybody' (cp4e). Parent article links to document with details.
In short, the idea is to eliminate difference between a programmer
and a user. Right now there's probably .1% users who participate in
development and 99.9% users who don't and therefore have only indirect
influence on development. If the language was easy enough for let's say
60% of users to be able to go and make minor changes/tweaks, that would
be quite a revolutionary change. That's what cp4e is trying to accomplish,
in a nutshell.

Python highlights:
* Free, OpenSource
* Simpler and more elegant than Perl (subjectively)
* Mature - started in '89 - before Linux.
* Unix/Win/Mac/etc
* Some big organizations like NASA and Yahoo use it.
* Core philosophy is KISS (keep it simple stupid) vs Perl's 'There Is More Than One Way to Do It'.

Don't underestimate them

[otterboy]

Don't underestimate your kids by teaching them something that you consider sub-par. If they want to learn to program like their old man, there is nothing that should prevent them from programing in a shell account from their windows box. I think it's great that they want to learn, so give them the best tools you know. Believe me, they'll learn faster than you can teach them if they decided they like it!

Re:Logo

[Azog]

YES! LOGO!

It is a real programming language, designed specifically for children for learning. It is a real programming language, with functions, parameter passing, etc. It is very graphic-oriented, so it's a great way to begin. Bugs in your code are very obvious as problems with the drawing.

The inventor of Logo, (Seymour Papert??) wrote a great book on Logo. I don't remember the name of it, but it is definitely worth reading.

The design of Logo was influenced by research into how children learn. One of the main goals is that children program the computer, rather than most so-called educational programs, which are more about the computer programming the children. Bugs are recognized as an opportunity to learn, not as mistakes to be punished.

On a personal note, I got my start in programming using Logo on an Apple II way back in grades 3 and 4. It was a great way to start. In the twenty years since then, I've programmed in dozens of languages. It's my career now. But I'll always remember commands like "FORWARD 20", "RIGHT 90", "PENUP", and "COLOR BLUE".

In fact, back around 1992 I started writing a Logo interpreter in Turbo Pascal for Windows. (Hey, it's what I knew at the time.)

If I had kids, Logo is where I would start them.

However, for older kids there's other possibilities. One interesting one off the top of my head: UnrealScript, for older kids who like games. It's also a real programming language, and kids can learn to customize Unreal and Unreal Tournament and do all sorts of neat stuff.


Torrey Hoffman (Azog)

Python - designed for teaching

[Insyte]

Python, which also happens to be my personal favorite language, was designed from the ground up to be easy to learn but to teach proper programming fundamentals. In fact, the almighty GvR is actively developing an IDE designed for classroom use.

http://www.python.org is the main home page, and http://www.python.org/cp4e/ is the home page for his educational projects.

Mindstorms?

[cprincipe]

How about Mindstorms? Good introduction to the relationship between programming and results.

Logo isn't dead; Methods for teaching Children..

[swdunlop]

It isn't dead, by a long mile.. It's just quiet. There's a free interpreter for most platforms called 'UCBLogo', and its derivative for windows environments, called 'MSWLogo'. I've been using MSWLogo as an environment for introducing elementary school children to procedural thinking and logic, and we plan to use Python for a second phase for students who show a desire to continue learning how to program.

We use Logo, first, because it's got a very high work-to-results ratio for the children. That kind of visual feedback is priceless, for getting them to think in a methodical fashion about a problem. Python requires a bit more of a learning curve before the children get 'interesting' programs that they enjoy, which is why we teach it to them, second.

The idea is, get them addicted, and identify the ones who want to learn more, then switch them onto a professional, albeit gentle, language. I'm still debating whether I'd rather use Pascal than Python, because it's strongly typed, but the quick turnaround for type-it, eval-it environments is nice for teaching.

But I agree with earlier comments. The first rule, is never underestimate your students. The second, is to never slow them down. Once you've given them a foundation, hand them a list of projects to do, and let them move at their own pace in accomplishing them. Younger students prefer praise as a motivator, older students will find their own motivations, and will want a more mentor-like relationship.

Good luck!

You might consider Alice

[CorranW]

http://www.alice.org

To quote:

Alice is a 3D Interactive Graphics Programming Environment for Windows 95/98/NT built by the Stage 3 Research Group at Carnegie Mellon University. The Alice project is a public service to the wider computing and artistic communities; our hope is to make it easy for novices to develop interesting 3D environments and to explore the new medium of interactive 3D graphics. The current version of Alice authoring tool is free to everyone and runs on computers that are commonly available for reasonable prices. Worlds created in Alice can be viewed and interacted with inside of a standard web browser once the Alice plug-in has been installed.

The scripting language used by Alice is a slightly modified version of Python, a language itself designed to be used by novices.

I don't have a windows box, so I haven't played with it, but it looks like it would be a good, fun way to ease kids into programming.

Corran

Don't be afraid of BASIC, VB, etc...

[jvj24601]

Most of us that have been around a long time (me, I started in Applesoft Basic and then to assembly, then Pascal, then C) didn't care about how clean or consistent a language was. We were curious about how the damn things worked, how programs were written, and how we could do the same. Just get them started on something, and just like us, they'll probably figure out what they like when they get older.

Same goes for anything kids do - expose them to everything and let them decide as they grow.