Does anyone know where I can find reviews from Nike or an other brand on the book NO LOGO from NAOMI KLEIN?

I guess the only logos or brand recognition that is acceptable is when Corporations GIVE money to PBS, The Arts,
Aids research, our failing educational institutes and so on.
Can't really see how I can ask for a certain drink by asking for a can of IT. If IT is good then it could and most likely would become a LOGO, wouldn't it?

The "No Logo" folks are just beginning. They do not need to calm down, they need to organize and expand. Why on earth should someone be proud of branding Coke? It's over-priced sugar water. It gives people cavities and diabetes and makes them fat. The fact that you convince millions of people that it is a cool thing to be associated with Coke is just sad. Do something useful with your life. Brand environmental movements. Brand the "slow food" movement. Brand solar panels. Selling your soul to a corporation is not cool and is becoming decidedly less so.

I agree with Michael on the difficulty of bounding branded space. Gathering popular support for such boundaries is especially difficult because neither the anti-brand activists nor anyone else has positively articulated the benefits of having schools, hospitals and public gathering places where corporate brand presence is kept minimal and low-key. Tax cuts or not, no public entity will be able to outbid Coke or McDonalds for control over our public environment, unless it can tell us what we have to gain.

Completely agree that (a) the no logo folks need to calm the heck down, and (b) that we need new ways of measuring the value and reach of brands to gauge the "intimacy" factor.

But your last recommendation -- defining the boundaries of branded space -- is going to be the hardest to implement, especially as the public institutions -- like schools, particularly schools -- are underfunded, and will look to corporations to provide funding in exchange for providing the opportunity to drive branding opportunities into the day to day experience of nine year olds. Having soda machines in cafeterias is only the beginning...

Your article is excellent. Although I've been advocating a "no-logo" stance, the real issue is the lack of control over public space. I also think the intricacies of brand ownership and patent law are part of the problem. Take the issue of "spike?"

Are there spaces and ideas that can, and should, always be public? And at what point can we really say that the public should be free of commerce? Public spaces have often been safe spaces for commerce. Perhaps the issue has to do with local vs. global economies.

http://saltyvicar.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry it makes no sense at all. You're babbling

Edited by author 07-09-2003 07:29 PM
Great article. I read it in a different context, my field of architecture, and your points are still valid. Branding in architecture is a oft lamented dilemma in the trade and among architecture critics, but now I see it as part of a larger "branding" phenomenon.

As I mull it over, "style" can be derivative and still be innovative and creatively original, fresh ..... but slavish branding cannot really be any of those things.

Hope you don't mind, I posted a link to your article at this discussion on a similar topic: http://forum.theatlantic.com/WebX?11@133.Ub6Pan0UgTl.1@.2cb4ea57

thots?