October Logo

Image by Michael Greenwood
(From the Anonymous ART of Revolution)

Rants & brands: Either you are for it or against it, but these are the days of corporate globalisation. When brands are the buzzword and selective brands the choice of millions of people, some people can hold on to their political stand to resist the trends — seeing so many people amongst us are vocal about the economical conquests of the big and greedy corporations — but it is apparently a Herculean task to stop the onslaught when products from toothpastes to clothes arrive in droves with labels and tags. For the business folks, it’s all about branding: the ultimate goal of promotion. When pop culture suffers from placelessness, they are in a quest to find the ways to identify and distinguish themselves and hence the images of their products specifically and their business goals as a whole.

In a way this matter is comparative. In cities, the issue might be on the line of thoughts against consumerism and capitalism; yet it is entirely different in a small town like my native place, where we are aware and go after the global brands yet we are economically so desolate.

Back again, like elsewhere, you are what your brand is. And that is where the marketing experts excel in, creating the kind of seemingly perfect images, especially amongst the youth. It is no surprise, though, when there is no fine line between modernisation and westernisation. Personally, I’d go for a nameless yet nice pair of shoe rather than to spend a fortune on a decorated (read branded) piece, but I enjoy designing.

Image from the Anonymous ART of Revolution

Reading list

Naomi Klein on how corporate branding has taken over America
Ten years after the publication of No Logo, Naomi Klein switches her attention from the mall to Barack Obama and discovers that corporate culture has taken over the US government
Source: The Guardian

Anti-globalisation–Are you Serious?
By Edwin Colyer
When you think about what it is supposed to do—communicate clearly what customers should expect from a product or service—it seems odd that anyone should be against branding. Brands are merely a badge, a promise of quality, an assurance of consistency. Why should anyone rail against that?Source: Brand Channel

The Rise of Anti-Capitalism
By Jeremy Rifkin
WE are beginning to witness a paradox at the heart of capitalism, one that has propelled it to greatness but is now threatening its future: The inherent dynamism of competitive markets is bringing costs so far down that many goods and services are becoming nearly free, abundant, and no longer subject to market forces. While economists have always welcomed a reduction in marginal cost, they never anticipated the possibility of a technological revolution that might bring those costs to near zero.
Source: The New York Times

Related pages

Adbusters https://www.adbusters.org/
Graphic design history http://www.designhistory.org/Symbols_pages/Branding.html
Anticapitalist initiative http://anticapitalists.org/
Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (PDF) By Ludwig von Mises 

On this blog
Everything Is Fine, Keep Shopping!
http://kapilarambam.blogspot.in/2013/08/everything-is-fine-keep-shopping.html