via AlterNet:



Naomi Klein: 'No Logo' Revisited

By Naomi Klein, Picador Press. Posted November 21, 2009.

In the new introduction to the re-release of her classic book, 'No Logo,' Klein explores how ad culture has thrived and adapted in the past decade.




The following is from the new introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition of Naomi Klein's classic book, "No Logo (Picador, 2009)"


As I write this introduction, thinking about how much branding has changed in ten years, a couple of developments seem worth mentioning off the top. In May of 2009, Absolut Vodka launched a limited-edition line called "Absolut No Label." The company's global public relations manager Kristina Hagbard explains that, "for the first time we dare to face the world completely naked. We launch a bottle with no label and no logo, to manifest the idea that no matter what's on the outside, it's the inside that really matters ... We encourage people to think twice about their prejudice, because in an Absolut world, there are no labels."

A few months later, Starbucks tried to avoid being judged by its own label by opening its first unbranded coffee shop in Seattle, called 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea. This "stealth Starbucks" (as the anomalous outlet immediately became known) was decorated with "one-of-a-kind" fixtures and customers were invited to bring in their own music for the stereo system as well as their own pet social causes -- all to help develop what the company called "a community personality." Customers had to look hard to find the small print on the menus: "inspired by Starbucks." Tim Pfeiffer, a Starbucks senior vice president, explained that unlike the ordinary Starbucks outlet that used to occupy the very same piece of retail space, "This one is definitely a little neighborhood coffee shop." After spending two decades blasting its logo onto 16,000 stores worldwide, Starbucks was now trying to escape its own brand.

Clearly the techniques of branding have both thrived and adapted since I published No Logo. But in the past ten years I have written very little about developments like these. I realized why while reading William Gibson's 2003 novel Pattern Recognition. The book's protagonist, Cayce Pollard, is allergic to brands, particularly Tommy Hilfiger and the Michelin Man. So strong is this "morbid and sometimes violent reactivity to the semiotics of the marketplace" that she has the buttons on her Levi's jeans ground smooth so that there are no corporate markings. When I read those words, I immediately realized that I had a similar affliction. It was not one of those conditions that you are born with but one that develops, over time, due to prolonged overexposure. I didn't used to be allergic to brands. As I confess in the pages of this book, as a child and teenager I was almost obsessively drawn to them. But writing No Logo required four years of total immersion in ad culture -- four years of watching and rewatching Super Bowl ads, scouring Advertising Age for the latest innovations in corporate synergy, reading soul-destroying business books on how to get in touch with your personal brand values, attending corporate seminars on brand management, making excursions to Niketowns, to monster malls, to branded towns. And watching some of the worst movies ever made while taking notes in the dark on product placement. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/media/144106/naomi...