No Logo Book Review by Chris Crawford 
Nike, McDonald's, The Gap, Royal Dutch Shell, Coca Cola. The list goes on. At every turn our everyday lives are aggressively infiltrated and co-opted by these and similar brands. So says Naomi Klein, author of the book, “No Logo.” And yet, according to the author, the book is less about the rise of The Brand than it is about the average individual’s potential to resist these commercial assaults on our choices, our privacy, on our very freedoms. Hence the title: “No Logo.” The book breaks down into four sections: “No Space,” “No Choice,” “No Jobs” and (for a summary manifesto) “No Logo.”
The first section “No Space” deals with the emergence of “branding” (that literal AD nauseum of modern life) and, with it, the demise of the individual character of our town and city centers, of any genuine public space. In flowing and uncomplicated language, Klein relates how hard-line branding was born as corporate strategy in the wake of “Marlboro Friday.” Marlboro Cigarettes, sales of which were previously thought untouchable by public whim, suddenly experienced a dramatic downturn in profits due to competition from so-called “economy” cigarettes. The public was developing immunity to The Brand. “Value for money” was winning the consumer, writes Klein. What Marlboro did next set the tone for corporate globalization as we know it. First, they simply slashed their prices to compete. The Marlboro name was no longer enough to entice the consumer from cheaper products. The death of the brand was announced. But the ad agencies were horrified and reacted by informing their big-name clients that the only way to survive was NOT to cut prices but to pump huge sums into new and improved ad campaigns. Not less but more branding was needed. Those companies which survived during this time were precisely the ones that took the ad men’s advice and forcefully rammed their image, their name, their lifestyle down the public throat. Not only did they survive, they thrived. We have all seen the billboards sprouting like toadstools through our cities and towns. Even our buildings advertise to us now, with one side or even all four sides of the structure covered with huge appeals to passing motorists, a three-dimensional obelisk of pure branding. And, according to Klein, therein lies the crux of the matter. These companies aren’t about concrete products. What they sell us are dreams, identities: lifestyle. In “No Choice,” Klein investigates the shadowy world of corporate takeovers and mergers, offering the reader well-researched, factual anecdotes which detail precisely how these mega-commercial entities calculate to restrict consumer choice. This is one of the most frightening parts of the book and is not recommended bedtime reading for paranoiacs, conspiracy theorists or for those of a sensitive nature. But (for the strong of stomach) as with the whole book, it’s not at all constipated, replete with examples and opinions easy to understand if not to digest. Illustrations include how Walmart refused to stock women’s magazines containing articles of even mild sexual content and how Blockbuster still refuses to stock any film, which receives an NC-17 rating (no viewers under seventeen years permitted). This is all the more enlightening when Klein describes those fantastic concatenations by which the retailers, distributors and producers of movies are so often owned by the same parent company: Blockbuster, Paramount Films, and their mutual owner Viacom are a case in point. Hollywood thus preempts Blockbuster Video by self-censoring films before release and, as Klein states – “this is the truly insidious nature of self-censorship: it does the gag work more efficiently than an army of bullying and meddling media moguls could ever hope to accomplish.” Put another way, Paramount is hardly likely to challenge Blockbuster’s stocking policy if it means disrupting the profit margins of their Daddy Viacom. If you’ve ever wondered why Hollywood cares so deeply about Blockbuster’s CEO’s opinion: then there’s your answer. Great stuff and so onto “No Jobs.” With global Brands so keen to rid themselves of anchors like concrete products, they are also apparently eager to cut their ties to local job markets, traditional labor constraints and stable employee pools. Klein does a solid job of enumerating the various tricks, loopholes and scams corporations have used to ensure that sweatshop workers from Asia and Mexico to Silicon Valley linger in the limbo of “temporary” employee contracts, stripping them of rights to health insurance, wage equality and other benefits lavished upon anointed “staff.” Here, Microsoft is the case-study of choice: one third of the world's most lucrative tech firm’s workers are classified as “temps.” The book ends on a more encouraging note with the “No Logo” chapter, which documents the surge of grassroots anti-globalization activism. From such class-action court cases as those waged against McDonald's to “adbusting” (a creative art/vandalism movement in which members deface billboards in ways that turn the original message on its head), resentment against corporate power is picking up steam. Klein obviously believes in her message and, here, she makes a persuasive sermon to convert the reader too. Stories of Greenpeace buzzing Shell oil rigs in ‘copters, of local schools holding anti-sweatshop fashion shows, of inner-city kids dumping bags of Nike trainers on the shoe-wear giant’s headquarter's steps add up to a compelling modern homily. Still, the strident question remains how to beat The Brands at their own game? Klein seems to believe that the answer lies in building a citizen-based resistance on both grassroots and high-tech levels, at once organized and dispersed, i.e. a human nailbomb which can attack from all directions. That’s just easier said than done. And before we act should we not pause to consider how it would impact on the whole global economy should that global corporations start to fall? I feel obliged to note that the word “economy” isn’t once mentioned in the book’s index. All told, Naomi Klein’s “No Logo” is an impressive and informative read without being exactly gripping. The prose flows, making quite a long book (490 pages) easy to swallow. And it’s certainly recommended reading if only to keep yourself up-to-date with who is allegedly shafting you or to keep your paranoia topped up to an unhealthy pitch. At the end, at least I was left wondering what action I myself should or could take against the rise of The Brand. If I say I concluded I would probably do nothing, is that a damning indictment against the book (which I enjoyed) or against me? But, then again, perhaps I wouldn’t really be alone in thinking: “I hate everything about McDonald's except the food.” What would help you decide what to buy? No More Sweatshops No Sweat All this intellectual talk about logos and sweatshops is tiring.... time for some good honest bullshit on a bun.... Super Size Me!!!
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