“Labels, Clothing, and Identity: Are You What You Wear”
Pegah Asadi Noughabi
Topic 2
1. In the beginning of the article, what are the significance of shoes?Explain the examples
sleek, white, expensive gizmos produced by a certain company in Cupertino and quality
2. What does the newly established “secret dialogue between what we buy and who we are” suggest about an individual’s notion of self and the brands he or she buys?What seems to be suggested as the modern individual’s relationship(s) to products?
If we thought about it, maybe we’d also realize that our relationship to brands and marketing campaigns has been undergoing a transformation. Marketers like to talk about the skepticism of the “new consumer,” a smart young character fleeing the mainstream and adamantly resistant to all forms of advertising. The consumers he observed seem very much involved with brands and products. If traditional advertising has become a less effective way of fostering that involvement, the commercial persuasion industry has in turn been fiendishly resourceful in coming up with alternative methods, infiltrating hitherto unexploited aspects of our lives.
3. What is “murketing?”
Murketing is an advertising strategy that avoids direct sales of a product and focuses instead on vagaries such as marketing buzz, brand identity and publicity.
4. What is the relationship between “meaning” (and meaning-making) and “the things we buy”? What do you believe is your own personal relationship with the stuff you own?
We go wrong, Walker believes, not when we express ourselves through our possessions, but when we allow our possessions to take precedence. It’s all too easy for people, under the influence of the siren songs of marketing (or murketing), to drift into a situation in which they use commodities “not to reflect who they are, but to construct who they are. Not to reflect a self, but to build a self.” No object, of course, is meaningful enough to fulfill that role, and an endless cycle of chasing after glittering but ultimately
Topic 2
1. In the beginning of the article, what are the significance of shoes?Explain the examples
sleek, white, expensive gizmos produced by a certain company in Cupertino and quality
2. What does the newly established “secret dialogue between what we buy and who we are” suggest about an individual’s notion of self and the brands he or she buys?What seems to be suggested as the modern individual’s relationship(s) to products?
If we thought about it, maybe we’d also realize that our relationship to brands and marketing campaigns has been undergoing a transformation. Marketers like to talk about the skepticism of the “new consumer,” a smart young character fleeing the mainstream and adamantly resistant to all forms of advertising. The consumers he observed seem very much involved with brands and products. If traditional advertising has become a less effective way of fostering that involvement, the commercial persuasion industry has in turn been fiendishly resourceful in coming up with alternative methods, infiltrating hitherto unexploited aspects of our lives.
3. What is “murketing?”
Murketing is an advertising strategy that avoids direct sales of a product and focuses instead on vagaries such as marketing buzz, brand identity and publicity.
4. What is the relationship between “meaning” (and meaning-making) and “the things we buy”? What do you believe is your own personal relationship with the stuff you own?
We go wrong, Walker believes, not when we express ourselves through our possessions, but when we allow our possessions to take precedence. It’s all too easy for people, under the influence of the siren songs of marketing (or murketing), to drift into a situation in which they use commodities “not to reflect who they are, but to construct who they are. Not to reflect a self, but to build a self.” No object, of course, is meaningful enough to fulfill that role, and an endless cycle of chasing after glittering but ultimately