Reviewed: No Logo

No Logo addresses a number of social implications, both locally and globally. Naomi Klein, with her experience from leaders of social activist groups, forms this book in the hopes of lifting a veil to the public eye, that her readers are not complacent by the onslaught of corporation’s pathological pursuit of power. It challenges the need to brand commodities, a corporation’s nature of creating a brand, image and lifestyle experience, over simply making a product. No Logo exposes the nature of the North American society; its consumption habits and influences its readers to look at them introspectively. It is about being aware of the brands that we consume, how we have naturally bought into the idea that thinking, no more than just a single reflex that we attach and associate brand names with the purpose of life. Ultimately, brands assimilate our social and cultural values by becoming culture itself, and as such, we need to take that back from the corporations, and re-define it – culture is not something that can be bought and sold like a brand.

The book is divided into four sections, No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, No Logo. Of those four sections, Klein goes into detail about the consequences these corporate behaviors are having on society, and subsequent reactions of the public.

No Space

Our physical environment is filled with manufactured images and slick advertisement campaigns. Billboards litter the sides of streets, highways and buildings, sides of buses, bus shelters, tops of taxicabs, on the clothes we wear. Klein points out that the corporation’s need to produce brands is imperative to stay successful, as opposed to manufacturing products. This idea of entrenching a company’s name within people’s minds was important, and of primary concern. As a result, overall advertising expenditures shot up considerably to the hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars, from the late seventies to late nineties – nothing was left unbranded, and no space was left unmarked.

Companies like Nike and Reebok, tried to outspend each other in the advertising sector, Nike being the one to edge out Reebok in ad spending by about $350 million in 1997. Companies like Nike wanted to be even more than just a brand. Expanding over physical space was not enough for CEO Phil Knight. They wanted to expand into every single freethinking mind that Nike was not just a brand, but about the transcendence of sports, their boutique stores as temples, and their slick advertisements as religions. Starbucks wanted to be a meeting place for community, a sense of homeliness while you purchase coffee, and the idea of being one with social activity. Scott Bedbury, CEO of Starbucks probably said it best by illustrating that Starbucks “Is the romance of the coffee experience, the feeling of warmth and community people get in Starbucks stores.”

No Choice

As if mentally programming people’s minds to naturally choose their brand was not enough, corporation’s wanted to make sure that we had no choice or little left to decide from. Literally being bombarded by the brand onslaught, we begin to see more replicas of store franchises. Companies like Walmart buy up everything in such large volumes are able to provide such low retail prices, that a lot of the smaller independent stores are forced to shut down, mainly because Walmart’s retail prices are cheaper than the other guy’s cost price. We literally have no choice but to choose from these brands, as they are everywhere.

The “if you aren’t everywhere, you are nowhere” strategy was a new way for corporations to extend their brand. Mergers began happening in order to stay “competitive”.
Walt Disney merges with Capital Cities / ABC, and Turner Broadcasting merges with Time Warner. This was a new level of a brand to represent multiple aspects of the industry. Corporate brands have grown so big that they now have the power to censor the material that we, as consumers receive. From the type of music we choose to listen, and it’s carefully edited lyrics, to the magazines we peruse, at stores like Walmart, who pick and choose which type of product is “appropriate”. You can begin to see the kind of control these corporations are starting to have on culture, and as people recognize the negative social implications this has on individuals, people demand that they take the power back from them (more on this in No Logo).

No Jobs

As the venture for increased profits prevailed, corporations realized that the real key to sky rocketing revenue was to move their factories offshore to third world nations. Massive amounts of jobs were cut in the United States in order that they identified that their sub contractors would fight nail and tooth for the cheapest bid and therefore it kept their costs to an extreme minimum. The shocking truth about sweatshops and poor working conditions is the driving force behind the social activism against multinational brands. People around the world are not just raising an eyebrow anymore but raising their protest signs at the retail stores they once thought was a good investment. Cavite, a city in the Philippines became the focal point of many brands, and as a result, the workers and the government became by-products of exploitation. Factories were declared areas similar to de-militarized zones, authority subverted and country taxes evaded. As such, workers were demanded in working 70hour weeks, sometimes 90-100 hours a week, and lucky to see $0.40 U.S for an hourly wage. Social activists and workers unions were very discouraged, and subtle messages of job loss and factory re-locations were threats to people wanting to stand up for their human rights.

What is also shameful is the loss of job security within North American soil. Brands recognized the fact that limiting the number of permanent full-time workers to temporary, part-time positions and contracting out to head hunters were a way of keeping revenue on the up, and personnel costs on the down. Klein says it best when the workers in the service sector consider themselves in a temporary position, always looking to better jobs – a mentality created by the brands and adopted by the people to think that “America doesn’t want these types of jobs”, says Phil Knight, CEO of Nike on the manufacturing of shoes.

No Logo

As a way of dealing with this socio-cultural strife, individuals formed organized activist groups, known as culture jammers to eliminate the brand’s ability to effectively advertise their campaign. Not dissimilar to Guy Debord’s essay on détournement, the new activist approach to uprooting the extremely wealthy and re-distributing to the working class – or even the mass population. Popular examples of détournement is AdBusters, a group of anti-advertisers that culture jam, or re-appropriate the billboards of the clogged downtowns and bus shelters of the suburbs to convey a completely opposite message than intended originally by the advertiser. This is especially prevalent with cigarette and beauty ads, where activists would re-mark and raise a level of social awareness that these corporations are trying to sell.

Rodriguez de Gerada is widely recognized as one of the most skilled and creative founders of culture jamming. Why do people do this? Let me ask you, what is beneficial for corporations such as Kool or Camel cigarettes to advertise in a society where kids start to believe that attaining these products will enhance their lives? His practices soon extended his critiques beyond tobacco and alchohol ads to include rampant ad bombardment and commercialism in general. As a result of this culture jamming and ad busting, companies like Diesel and Nike began adopting this type of anti-authoritarianism as a well for visual gimmicks. Advertisers were going to stop at nothing to sell products, even if it meant copying people like de Gerada.

To metaphorically objectify the brand corporations as a sponge is probably an accurate description of this phenomenon. To become everything and everyone is the main goal of these hedonistic companies is at the root of the problem. As stated earlier, the usurpation of socio-cultural aspects of the people should not be tolerated and the power should be given back to the people. In some cases, people are forced to take what is theirs, by street rallies and internationally organized protests on city streets (ch. 13 Reclaim the Streets). Klein further moves onto conclude that the most effective fight against these corporations is the courageous task of bringing them to the courts. As Klein describes, the basic principle of citizenship is this: people should govern themselves. Activism is no longer about just going against multinational corporations, as it was in the early days. It is about defining who holds the keys to culture – brands, or the people.

– Stephen