Nathan, can you tell us more about the "rebellious lawyers" conference?
Ian
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of alex lantsberg
> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 12:06 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com; pulp-culture at Infothecary. org
> Subject: brand bombing
>
>
> http://www.thestar.com/back_issues/ED20000117/money/20000117BUS01b
> _FI-ROSEMAN.ht
> ml
>
> Just sick of Nike- Author foresees backlash against hip logos, brands
> CLUB MONACO and Roots move from clothes into home furnishings.
> Starbucks puts out a magazine called Joe and Microsoft has an
> on-line journal,
> Slate.
> Ralph Lauren markets designer household paints, Nike launches a
> swooshed cruise
> ship and auto-parts giant Magna opens a theme park.
> This is what happens when brand names rule the world.
> To understand how branding drives the global market, you couldn't
> ask for a
> better guide than Toronto writer Naomi Klein.
> No Logo: Taking Aim At The Brand Bullies (Knopf Canada, $35.95),
> is a weighty
> tome, almost 500 pages of facts, charts and passionate argument.
> Klein, 29, admits she didn't understand branding herself when she
> started the
> book four years ago.
> ``I thought it was the same as advertising,'' she says. ``And I
> didn't see the
> connection between labour issues and brand marketing.''
> She immersed herself in management books such as The Circle Of
> Innovation by
> U.S. guru Tom Peters, an ode to the power of marketing over production.
> And she travelled to Asian free trade zones to watch factory
> workers make the
> finished products of our branded world: Nike running shoes, Gap
> pyjamas, IBM
> computer screens, Old Navy blue jeans.
> While visiting a factory near Jakarta in Indonesia, she quizzed
> the workers on
> what brand of garments were being produced.
> Turned out the label was London Fog.
> ``A global coincidence, I suppose,'' writes Klein, who was living
> in a 10-storey
> warehouse in Toronto's garment district on Spadina Ave.
> Her landlord had made his fortune manufacturing London Fog overcoats.
> ``I started to tell the workers that my apartment in Toronto used
> to be a London
> Fog coat factory but stopped abruptly when it became clear from
> their facial
> expressions that the idea of anyone choosing to live in a garment
> building was
> nothing but alarming.
> ``In this part of the world, hundreds of workers every year burn to death
> because their dormitories are located upstairs from firetrap sweatshops.''
> As she embarked on her journey of awakening, Klein came to the
> realization that
> successful corporations produce brands, not products.
> Nike was the model for others in not owning any factories and having its
> products made by contractors overseas.
> ``Whoever owns the least, has the fewest employees on the payroll
> and produces
> the most powerful images, as opposed to products, wins the race.''
> Such companies establish emotional ties with their customers -
> the brand as
> experience as lifestyle.
> The Body Shop markets an ethical and ecological approach to
> cosmetics. Nike Inc.
> aims to enhance people's lives through sports and fitness. International
> Business Machines Corp. peddles business solutions.
> Brands extend their reach into the schools, the arts and culture
> at large, until
> very little unmarketed space is left.
> At almost every university in North America, advertising
> billboards appear on
> bicycle racks, on benches, in hallways linking lecture halls, in
> libraries, even
> in bathroom stalls.
> And all over the world, universities offer their research
> facilities, and their
> academic credibility, for the brands to use as they please.
> Here Klein turns confessional. As an activist caught up in
> identity politics in
> her University of Toronto days, she didn't notice the stealthy
> creep of branding
> into the universities.
> ``I'm proud of the small victories we won for better lighting on
> campus, more
> women faculty members and a less Eurocentric curriculum,'' says Klein.
> ``What I question is the battles we North American culture
> warriors never quite
> got around to.''
> But today's anti-corporate activism, evidenced by the Battle in
> Seattle, makes
> the author hopeful.
> Devoting the second half of her book to the attack against
> branding, Klein says
> the movement is in its early stages but will have staying power.
> Why? Because corporations have lost the suit of armour that used
> to protect them
> from widespread antagonism - their job-creation role.
> With the conversion of full-time jobs into part-time and casual
> work, companies
> have created a population of workers who don't see themselves as
> lifers and are
> free to engage in guerilla politics.
> ``The more ambitious a company has been in branding the cultural
> landscape, and
> the more careless it has been in abandoning workers,'' she
> argues, ``the more
> likely it is to have generated a silent battalion of critics waiting to
> pounce.''
> Klein infuses her writing with pop culture references to make it
> more accessible
> to younger people. But her impressive analytical and writing
> skills will impress
> business readers, too.
> In one of my favourite chapters, on ``brand bombing,'' she
> explains a local
> phenomenon that puzzled me. How did Starbucks Corp., which had no cafés in
> Toronto, suddenly have 100 or more?
> The company uses a clustering strategy, saturating an area with
> stores until the
> competition is so fierce that sales drop even in Starbucks outlets. (Klein
> includes a graph showing the drop in same-store sales over five years.)
> Even while cannibalizing its own stores, Starbucks nevertheless
> takes market
> share away from independent coffee shops and reaps a long-term
> branding goal.
>