HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

No LOGO: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies [NO…
Loading...

No LOGO: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies [NO LOGO REV/E] (original 2000; edition 2002)

by Naomi(Author) Klein (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
6,546541,443 (3.72)72
Modern corporate avarice takes many different forms and all are brought into the light of day in No Logo. Naomi Klein illustrates how corporate entities have ceased to be factories that make things and have instead transformed themselves into brands they slap on outsourced materials. Klein gives many examples of the way in which advertisers condition people to respond favorably to brand labels by associating those labels with positive stimuli, such as music, concerts, sports events, and sports venues. This results in the brands themselves becoming cherished symbols of delight, worn on clothing, transforming people themselves into advertising media. She gives many examples of how corporations have shut factories in North America and opened vastly lower-paying sweatshops in impoverished countries. She shows how companies have increasingly ceased paying anything close to a full-time living wage, forcing people to give up searching for work or accepting low-paying part-time work. She also covers grass-roots movements that have risen up to challenge these forms of corporate exploitation. No Logo is now 18 years but remains an eye-opening catalog of what has gone wrong in corporate America and how to begin to solve these problems. ( )
  bkinetic | Jan 26, 2018 |
English (44)  Italian (4)  Spanish (2)  Finnish (1)  Hebrew (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (53)
Showing 1-25 of 44 (next | show all)
Originally published in 2000, and in the author's own admission, No Logo needs updating. However, it's still very relevant today. If you believe market-driven globalization is destroying lives and democracy, this book is for you. ( )
  btbell_lt | Aug 1, 2022 |
support small businesses, campaign for corporate regulation, and skip the last section of this book ( )
  GarzaDream | Mar 5, 2022 |

It's not your typical marketing consultant book by any stretch of the imagination, after all, Naomi, is not of the Zyman, Reis, or Trout family of marketing writers. Those guys write about Positioning, Focus, (excellent works by the way) and how the only thing that matters in marketing is selling more things to more people more often. After reading Zymans "The End of Marketing as We Know It", you'd think there was nothing more important this world than getting people to consume until they explode or go bankrupt.
No Logo takes an entirely different tack. Branding, yea, it gets it due here. Most companies in the US don't make anything anymore. They build brands; they don't build products. Nike, whatever companies made the clothes on your back, or branded the computer you're reading this review on didn't sell you a product. They sold you an image. Maybe they sold your kids an image you finally broke down and bought at the expense of something else.
Cash strapped schools are great place to set the brand hook early. The kids might come home wired and fat from the Taco Bell lunches and Coke machines around every corner, moving one step closer to diabetes or heart disease every day. These days maybe we should just be happy the brand are there to step in and help out where public funding no longer makes the grade. As long as your kid isn't like Mike Cameron who got suspended for wearing a Pepsi shirt to school on "Coke day", there is nothing to worry about, right?
It's intuitive from the consumer side, particularly when we look around and see all the "stuff" we have for which there is really no need. Brands rule, branding "works"; it gets people to buy more stuff more often at increasingly higher prices, often required to offset the cost of the branding campaigns.
That's great unless yours is an industry that has or is in the process of outsourcing production of the actual material goods to an "Export Processing Zone" and your job entails some part of the production process. If it can be made in an overseas sweatshop and shipped back over here, chances are it will be in the not to distant future. It'll be interesting to see what effect the move to the brand based company has on the current and future economy of the US.
So maybe you think it's crazy (or not) that companies here spend billions just create images and perceptions to drive demand for products made elsewhere. Image becomes everything, however, an image can also be extremely fragile. People in glass houses don't throw rocks anymore, the lawyers protecting those fragile brands do. Sometimes it's shutting down fan sites or user groups on the net or trying to block the dissemination of informational leaflets that may not paint an ideal rosy picture of the brand. As was the case with McDonalds in the McSpotlight case, some times the brands take a beating. The glass house comes crumbling down. Sometimes it just takes a few brave sould to stand up for what they believe in.
No Logo will make you think. It might arouse a passion deep within to get involved and look for a ways to bring about change or affect your future career (hint - the money is in brand marketing!). It ought to be required reading for any student of marketing, if for no other reason to provide a sense of balance and awareness of how marketing and branding fits into the business process these days. ( )
  064 | Dec 25, 2020 |
This was published in 2000, coming out during the time when the internet bubble was riding high but before the fall of the Two Towers (the ones in NY, not Tolkein's).

Its subject matter was Shell, McD's, and Nike. Social awareness was getting a second wind after languishing in general and now it was all about sweatshops. Multinational corporations became our favorite bogeymen (again), and this was when we could throw our weight behind small-time activists and FEEL like we could accomplish some great-seeming things... like getting all the exploiters out of Burma so as to take away the support of that regime.

Remember those times?

Add awareness to the whole Banding idea, the feeling that Corporations are real people with souls (ha), and see this as a way to stop bad practices by attacking their PR image.

Then realize that the problem goes sooooooo much deeper. Much deeper than this book is prepared to take it, except to realize that these highly visible multinational corporations were great as a rallying point but even if anyone could break them down and hold them accountable, it was EVERY OTHER corporation doing the exact same thing that makes the situation seem rather hopeless.

So, and rightly so, this book does not delve into the economics and politics that made the rape of underdeveloped countries possible: the policies and the greed and the perfectly legal practices that can ravage whole countries, their land, and devastate indigenous peoples.

It can't. It's a problem that requires widespread awareness everywhere... and the knowledge of all the interrelated contributing factors... to combat.

We all need to be aware and awake to not just the fact of injustice, but the causes. The only real way we can combat this problem is by waking the real slumbering beast of humanity from its ignorant dream. :)


( )
  bradleyhorner | Jun 1, 2020 |
First published in 2000, No Logo is still a book with a lot to say. I'm a bit surprised by some reviews of it suggesting that it's not well-written, that it's 'pseudo-intellectual' - neither of which are true. The style may not be to everyone's taste, and some sections are less interesting and strong than others, but overall - to naive folk like me - it's a real wake-up call. The book details the evolution of the brand, how this led to a whole new breed of firm, and the damaging impact that this has had not only on the less well-off (third world), but on first world society also. This is all well-researched and strongly argued, and it's very much to the book's credit that what's most shocking is what is also best documented. There's no controversy about it, it's not some extremist conspiracy theory: this is the world we're living in. Read it!

Gareth Southwell is a philosopher, writer and illustrator.
  Gareth.Southwell | May 23, 2020 |
No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs by Naomi Klein is an examination of the change from products to branding and the results that has had on the population. Klein is a writer, journalist, and film maker. She writes a syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian, and covered the Iraq war for Harper’s.

I read this book shortly after Shock Doctrine and recognized quite a difference in writing style. Shock Doctrine was a fast paced read for non-fiction while No Logo reads much more like a scholarly thesis. It is fact filled and so well documented that it slows the reading pace down. This is a book you read for information not simply enjoyment. Also know that even the updated book was released in 2002 so some of the technology is no longer as relevant.

I remember when brands represented a product and a reputation. Growing up Schwinn was a quality bicycle. When you bought a Schwinn bike you knew you were buying a quality product. Today the brand Schwinn still lives, the name bought and sold a few times, and now Schwinns are sold in the toy department at Wal-Mart. They are disposable bikes. Cheap to buy and expensive to repair. I work as a bike mechanic and I noticed many things that Klein has brought up in No Logos. There is still brand loyalty in the bicycle industry, but in reality it is pretty meaningless. If your bicycle is an aluminum Trek, Specialized, Fuji, or other higher end brand, the frame was made by Giant, also a bicycle company. If you bike is carbon fiber it came from one of three plants in China or Taiwan. Simply put, brand loyalty has little to do with the actual product. You are buying an image, not a product. This happens in other industries too. Years ago a friend was showing me his Ford Probe. “Look at this.” he said pointing to the valve cover. There was a Ford emblem held in place with two screws. He proceeded to remove the screws and Ford emblem to reveal MAZDA stamped into valve cover underneath.

Klein spends a great deal of words on branding and brand identity and how it has changed over the years. Before you made a product, sold it, developed a reputation, and that became the brand. Now you create a brand and hype and sub-contract out for a product. Microsoft's Redmond campus was contracted out. A company took over the cafeteria, another took over cd manufacturing, essentially all but the core operations were contracted out.

Klein also brings up people that find trends to sell to corporations. People who go out and look for the newest hipster trends and sell those ideas. Some corporations have quit going after counterfeit merchandise especially in the inner city. The inner city/rap/urban culture is cool and even if the item is counterfeit, the right person wearing it will more than make up for the counterfeit by becoming an ad. Graffiti artists tearing up a corporations ads? Don’t fight back, join in. Chrysler Neon used to have a friendly little ad with “Hi” written over the top of the friendly little car. Chrysler, went ahead and pre-vandalized their bill boards with a fake sprayed “p” after the “Hi” the Neon was now made “Hip” apparently by the cool graffiti artists.

Also, interesting was a paragraph about the NAACP petitioning cigarette companies into putting more blacks into their ads in 1960. Thirty years later a church group complained that cigarette companies were exploiting black poverty in the inner city. I grew up in Cleveland, which was at the time a very segregated city. My public library was on the other side of the de facto border. Even back in the 1970s, as a child, I noticed the change when crossing that border: the cigarette and malt liquor billboards with black models were everywhere. The billboards were very colorful, very stereotypical, and today would be seen as racist.

Those were only a few examples in the book. Mega-Mergers of the 1980s and 1990s and the growth of Wal-Mart and Blockbuster bring more change to the American markets. Throughout this book one thought came into my mind. If all corporations had a cap on advertising budgets, how much cheaper would things be at the grocery store? There is an almost unimaginable amount of money spent on advertising.

Again, Klein produces a scholarly study on brands, mergers, ads, sweat shops, advertising in schools, and all the tricks corporations use to become kings of the consumer markets. No Logo can be a bit dry reading at times, but this book clearly is the foundation of her later work. In the 1990s we celebrated capitalism and consumerism destroying communism and state planned economies. Today it seems capitalism and consumerism are also trying to destroy itself. A very informative and well researched book.
( )
  evil_cyclist | Mar 16, 2020 |
Modern corporate avarice takes many different forms and all are brought into the light of day in No Logo. Naomi Klein illustrates how corporate entities have ceased to be factories that make things and have instead transformed themselves into brands they slap on outsourced materials. Klein gives many examples of the way in which advertisers condition people to respond favorably to brand labels by associating those labels with positive stimuli, such as music, concerts, sports events, and sports venues. This results in the brands themselves becoming cherished symbols of delight, worn on clothing, transforming people themselves into advertising media. She gives many examples of how corporations have shut factories in North America and opened vastly lower-paying sweatshops in impoverished countries. She shows how companies have increasingly ceased paying anything close to a full-time living wage, forcing people to give up searching for work or accepting low-paying part-time work. She also covers grass-roots movements that have risen up to challenge these forms of corporate exploitation. No Logo is now 18 years but remains an eye-opening catalog of what has gone wrong in corporate America and how to begin to solve these problems. ( )
  bkinetic | Jan 26, 2018 |
"No Logo" is a phenomenally-impressive first work from Naomi Klein. Written in the '90s about the rise of brands which sold ideas as opposed to corporations selling products, it could not be more relevant today.

Hipsterism, millennials (although they weren't called that yet), irony, terrible jobs, organizing. These are some of the themes that run throughout the book.

Klein highlights some fascinating intersections between art and activism. For example, have you heard of Reclaim the Streets? Started in London, they organized massive parties on public streets.

Although you think you may have heard the story, getting into the hardship of working conditions in third-world countries is worth revising. Nike sells shoes for hundreds of dollars that it pay workers to manufacture for pennies. The inequity is stunning and humbling. ( )
  willszal | Jun 10, 2017 |
So like this book called No Logo has this cool logo on the front. Does anyone know where I can buy the t-shirt? ( )
  BradLacey | Jun 28, 2016 |
Some political activists can over-sell their ideology: I would be surprised were Naomi Klein's sternest critics to accuse her of that. She sets out her case both rationally and without drama. This makes her findings all the more disturbing.

In this, her first book, she takes on the big names of corporate branding. She explains how exploited workers in third world countries produce designer brands which are then sold, often to the poorer members of the richer countries populations, for exorbitant profits. Klein steers clear of making value judgements, but I defy the reader not to feel depressed. It doesn't matter whether you are a Communist, or a fully paid up capitalist; if you read, with as little prejudice as possible, you must surely come to the conclusion that this trend will not end well, for anyone. The third world poor are being paid less than a living wage, getting injured, or even killed, by dangerous practises and must be building animosity towards the west. The people of the west are being duped into paying over the odds for "designer" labels and losing their jobs to foreign workers and, even the 1% making vast profits at the moment, would see that their days are numbered.
This is a bleak, but necessary read. Klein tries to put a brave face upon the situation, suggesting that change can and is coming. I, for one, remain to be convinced that we will make the amendments, so desperately needed, without bloodshed. ( )
  the.ken.petersen | Oct 21, 2014 |
Modern History. A populist-academic examination of brands and globalisation and their effects on worldwide labour. Quite a good insight into systemic corporate greed and the brewing backlash against it. Later chapters remind me of my own 'Control, Change and the Internet' in their vague attempt to grasp global culture. ( )
  questbird | Oct 7, 2013 |
This looks like another eyeopener from Naomi Klein who wrote 'The Shock Doctrine'. ( )
  wonderperson | Mar 31, 2013 |
Bel libro; non certo di facile lettura , ma di sicuro da leggere . Non e' un libro anarchico o di sinista, come e' stato etichettato, ma e' una analisi oggettiva e documentata del fenomeno del branding in tutte le sue forme. ( )
  mara4m | Jun 8, 2011 |
Bueno, no está mal. Se presenta un problema serio y bien documentado pero uno espera alguna propuesta seria de solución.
Deberían leerlo muchas personas, pero creo que o la traducción se hace insorportable o el libro está mal escrito. ( )
  pepesaura | Apr 26, 2011 |
I assumed that this book would mostly solidify inklings of ideas and opinions I already had, but it did a lot more than that. A very thorough and convincing portrait of a world headed for a new class crisis, coupled with a crisis for the freedom of expression, and perhaps democracy itself. ( )
  jddunn | Nov 21, 2010 |
Contiene algunas imprecisiones, no obstante está bien documentado, pero muestra sólo una parte del mundo empresarial. Hay que leerlo para ver en que Mundo vivimos, y saber que aún podemos cambiarlo ( )
  mp3sii | Oct 25, 2010 |
A must read for those who think that the free market eventually trickles down. ( )
  MeganZ | Aug 5, 2010 |
I read this book in college and this will be more that 10 years ago now. I am beginning to feel old.
This is a book with a message and it says it loud and clear. that consumerism is actually destroying the fabric of the communities that we live in.
It was interesting to read the way that brans are promoted. why a brand name is promoted as opposed to a product.
Looking back at it now for this distance I can see that the subject covered was besed very much on the hyped up eighties version of marketing which was very in you face. It does however leave you with a lingering doubt as to whether the sopfter capains are any different under the skin.
This book used language that I could understand, where jargon was used it was explaned (but not in too much detail) teh subject was covered from every angle.
I read this book as I had a social concious in college and was advised to give this book a go as it would explane things. not certain that I would read it fro any other purpose.
  jessicariddoch | May 21, 2010 |
It takes a book like to this to wake up people like me who cannot even tell the things that are going on right under my nose. The disinformation clouds our vision so that we cannot see the true emergency. Thank you for doing this good work, Naomi Klein.
  libraryhermit | Apr 24, 2010 |
An excellent critique of multinational corporations and the broader impacts of their existence beyond their marketed brand identities. Naomi Klein first details how corporations gradually started making their way into all facets of our lives (No Space), how they homogenized landscapes and took over locally owned businesses (No Choice), how they laid off workers and moved to sweatshops to produce goods (No Jobs), and how people are fighting back (No Logo).

This is just another piece of the big picture of how multinational corporations are gaining more and more power, what they are doing with that power, and what implications this has for the rest of us. I found it particularly interesting (although nothing I didn't already know) when Klein made the obvious point that multinational corporations in the US are moving away from manufacturing products, and are instead selling products. There are no longer meaningful middle-class jobs in the US because they are not as profitable for corporations as slave wages in third world countries; and now companies in the US can focus on advertising and massive PR and sponsorship campaigns to sell their products to the masses.

Although Klein points out that there are (were? the book was written about 10 years ago) a lot of activists who are committed to fighting against the system, she does ultimately conclude that it is going to take a large public, government effort to stem the growth of multinational corporations. And here she is not so optimistic, and I tend to agree. In this day and age, multinational corporations are effectively more powerful than any single government organization.

This is definitely a great read about the pervasiveness of brands, and the larger impact they have on our lives, the lives of sweatshop laborers, activists, etc. ( )
  lemontwist | Dec 28, 2009 |
In many ways this is a left wing equivalent of all those right wing columnists who tell us doomsday is nigh. The difference here is that Klein actually uses thorough research to back herself up rather than base her opinion on isolated incidents. As a result it's a fairly depressing overall read, from this you'd think that the corporate drive for profit during the 1990s were completely undermining not only Western society, but also the poorer parts of the globe. Which, to an extent they are. Klein charts how large corporations are systematically divesting themselves of their base earthbound corporeal form (in terms of jobs and goods) and are attempting to ascend to a higher corporate plane, where all they have and sell is their own identity. Even if you disagree with Klein's ideological position it's a fascinating account of how corporations and society are changing.

If it has a major flaw it's that it seems to be hankering after a utopian past, where corporations and branding were less pervasive. Despite that, Klein seems to want this to be an intelligent call to arms, pointing out the problems of rampant capitalism and how, even at an individual level, it can be checked.

Like the opening quote of the book, on the surface No Logo is simply a document of corporate practice. But undeneath that it's an angry polemic positively seething with anger at the sweatshops, job cuts and invasive advertising. It might be overly reductive to say this, but No Logo is an anti-corporate wake up call whose theme is even more relevant today, even if some of the details aren't. ( )
4 vote JonArnold | Mar 2, 2009 |
A shocking and lively book designed to stir both thought and emotion in the Western reader. It details all that is wrong with globalisation and corporate power, brings to life the tireless yet often unseen operations fighting back, and mercilessly sets out the dreadful treatment of workers being exploited by many of our most well-known brands.

In terms of these corporations and global companies, Klein unapologetically explores the very darkest depths of their capitalist mentality. She names and shames several huge brands, including Nike, Nestle, Disney, Microsoft, Wal-mart, McDonalds and Gap, and frequently refers back to these examples to illustrate her points in a recognisable context.

Another of her tactics, well-used to provoke reaction throughout the book, is to provide the reader with detailed case studies, and accompanying analysis, of some of the more heinous scandals linked to various companies over the years. From strikes by humiliated teenage workers at McDonalds to compulsory pregnancy testing and the sacking of pregnant workers in poor factories, this is really explicit and shocking material. One example that will never leave my mind is that of the death of many young female workers, mostly teenagers, in a poor foreign garment sweatshop. The girls were locked into the factory all day, with no comforts and no safety measures in place. When a bundle of flammable material caught fire, the whole factory went up. The workers had no escape route and died, some in the fire itself and some, tragically, by throwing themselves from the windows to avoid being slowly burned alive.

Alongside these horrors, Klein explores the anti-globalisation politics in the world, as well as the pitiful, hypocritical means used by the brands to try and claw back their popular image. She visits worker unions and help centres trying to liberate sweatshop workers. She looks at boycotts and consumer power in changing the way brands conduct business. Movements such as ‘Reclaim the Streets’ – a disruptive street-blocking festival scene – and ‘Culture Jamming’ – the art of reworking and altering adverts on the streets in order to change their political meaning drastically – are also described in detail.

Whilst it is terribly frustrating to read about the evasive tactics used by companies – moving factories, issuing ‘ethical’ ad campaigns and avoiding monitoring – the final message is one of hope, empowerment and a need for education. A brilliant and eye-opening book that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to anyone who is feeling disillusioned with all-dominating brands and capitalist values in today’s turbulent and morally questionable society. ( )
  elliepotten | Jan 17, 2009 |
Very impressive and wide ranging book, can drag a bit but is well worth reading this now classic book. The world of brands will never be the same again. It also gets very scary when the advertising/sponsorship in schools was covered. ( )
  andersondotau | Aug 19, 2008 |
Disturbing book in many ways. Although I do think that there are times when she exaggerates, and is a bit sloppy in casting blame, some of her major themes are very much in synch with concerns that I've been developing over a period of years. The loss of public space and the domination of cultural discourse on the part of global brands, resulting in a loss of choice, is one issue that has been increasingly painful for me to witness. You travel the world, and end up right where you left, in a homogenous, consumerized culture of global blandness. In exchange for the generation of brand loyalty, global corporations are forcing small business out of business, and taking jobs away from loyay employees. Ultimately, the extent to which sweat shop countries outgrow this phase is not something she is willing to deal with (consider the overall advances in economic well being made in South Korea).

The book forshadows many of the themes from Dreher's "Crunchy Cons" book (which does not index Klein). She does quote from Kunstler. ( )
  jaygheiser | Jul 28, 2008 |
Klein’s last section, No Logo is her longest and I think most effective section. Here she examines what has now become the anti-globalization, anti-branding, and anti-corporate movements. It’s a largely uncritical look, but there are some salient points.

(Full review at my blog) ( )
  KingRat | Jun 17, 2008 |
Showing 1-25 of 44 (next | show all)

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.72)
0.5 3
1 27
1.5 7
2 72
2.5 13
3 262
3.5 55
4 447
4.5 48
5 212

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,186,606 books! | Top bar: Always visible