No Logo
Naomi Klein in her book No Logo outlines her thoughts as to how marketing and advertising by a company has made a dramatic shift from showcasing a product, to the branding of the company name. Companies have now shifted their focus to creating an association between the company and an idea. The company then uses this idea to sell their products. In her book she also addresses the growing massive globalization of corporations into global Goliaths. She makes the claim that such large corporations may even be considered form of multinational government. Klein states that these huge corporations are squeezing out the competition and creating less competition to compete with within the markets, and less of a fight to attract consumers. “The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multi-national corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single, seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980s: that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products.” (Klein 4) Klein’s feature argument in the early chapters of the book are that brands are now not so much selling a product but rather selling an idea to there consumers. Here argument is also saying that the company is selling the consuming of their product to their consumer. “The effect, if not always the original intent, of advanced branding is to nudge the hosting culture into the background and make the brand the star. It is not to sponsor culture but to be culture....If brands are not products but ideas, attitudes, values and experiences, why can 't they be culture too?” (30) For example car companies no longer focus on the details and technical specifics of their cars, but instead show young people having fun inside the car jamming out to music, with friends, just driving. So instead of selling the car, they are selling the experience of the car. Apple expanded on their company
Cited: Klein, Naomi. “No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies.” Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2000.