Precis: Naomi Klein - No Logo

Look at me, waiting until almost the absolute last minute to post this. Ain't procrastination great?

The excerpt from Naomi Klein's No Logo argues that the concept of promoting the brand rather than the product, an idea born in the 1980s and successfully employed in the 1990s, has completely revolutionized the fundamental ideas of marketing and advertising in the United States. While advertisers had previously focused on promoting the supposed benefits of the product they were selling, this new strategy focused on promoting a lifestyle built around brand names – and buying products associated with those brand names to stay up-to-date on the lifestyles. It shifted the focus of the companies from producing to marketing, and, in doing so, they found they could increase profits while cutting costs – essentially, every CEO's dream come true.

Klein places the purchase of Kraft by Philip Morris as the pivotal moment when advertising the brand itself became the key feature. From that point forward, the companies who survived best focused most on their brand's philosophy, not on their competition's prices or their product's benefits. She demonstrates this with both descriptions of modern franchises and interviews with their company heads and advertising directors. The one with the head of Nike is most telling; he straightforwardly says that the companies focus has shifted away from both production and design and towards creating the most effective marketing strategy. It doesn't matter how good the product is as long as you can sell it.

The excerpt, like the rest of the book, is pitched to naive American consumers, people who think they know – but really don't know – the abuses inherent in the system. By describing the models of modern marketing campaigns, it challenges the reader to look at his or her own purchases. How much is he or she buying into brand loyalty instead product quality? Certainly, there are legions of Apple and Starbucks fans who see that brand as a way of life. Although Klein talks briefly about the rise of discount supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and the small-name brands associated with cheaper costs, the piece makes the overall case that the continuing staying power of many brands and rise of new ones prove that the industry was not severely harmed by the discounters, but was instead just as dominant as before, evolving to stay at the top. When a group of weeds is being attacked by Round Up Ready, the theory of natural selection says that the ones with a genetic mutation allowing them to survive will quickly become dominant. A very similar thing happened with the large corporations: when faced with an attack by the discounters, some companies died, but others with better strategies rose to take their place. Klein is hinting that in a capitalist system, companies will continue to find new and improved ways to make a profit. If that means outsourcing production and focusing on corporate image, than so be it. It's business.