No matter where I go, or what I look at, something in my surroundings will have been appropriated by branding of one kind or another. Hell, they even use crop circles to make brand logos. I also noticed when the last phone book came out, for example, that people were so desperate to use it for adspace/visibility, that a company name was stamped on the edges of the book itself.
Would it be in better taste if I obscured the phone number/address, or should we let Mr. Katz reap some ersatz advertising from me?
I have a long list of adjec(exple)tives at the ready that detail precisely what I think of this sort of rampant branding, so I've got to be honest and tell you that when I saw this article over at Jason Kottke's blog, that talked about the Metro Transit Authority in New York selling naming rights to subway stops, my anti-branding nerve twitched like a caffeine addict denied access to the only Tim Hortons in town.
In IJ (which I am sadly yet denied access to due to slow shipping) we have time designated by corporate sponsorship: years with names like "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment". Companies are so desperate to gain that extra inch of mindspace from consumers, that they buy time - literally. It might seem arbitrary and confusing, but so are the numerics of years really. They follow on from one number to the next numeric in line, but they are more or less an arbitrary choice started from an equally arbitrarily chosen point in human history.
This brand ubiquity, so dominating that not even the most avid troglodyte could escape from it, reminded me of Naomi Klein's No Logo, which, amongst so many other things, discusses the effects that this sort of globalisation has on human culture. It details, in specific, how some of the more well-known brands in the consumer world do not even make their own products anymore. These companies are merely names that buy the product from unnamed manufacturers; and, as the NY Times article says in regards to the subway stops, "Once upon a time, geographic relevance determined a station's name, but now, the authority says it is open to any naming agreements that can raise revenue for its transit system, including ones not directly tied to location."
Names no longer stand for anything but names.
I feel trapped by this globalisation of brand; I feel trapped in such a way that I cannot breath. Everything is being packaged, logoed, and shipped by a brand. (I once had to transcribe some conference speeches that dealt specifically with branding, and inspiring consumer confidence in a product by branding everything right down to the method of shipping.) I feel trapped by the idea that no matter what human creation comes to the fore, someone is going to brand it, corporatise it, turn it into some shiny Web 2.0 feature-pretty-fest that looks like community but is really just a thinly veiled attempt at homogeneity or population dumbdown. Remember, kids - a stupid populace is a controllable one.
If you're old enough you remember the plaid bondage-style gear that some of the old-skool punks would sport back in the day; stuff they picked up at junk shops, made themselves, stole, but in no fashion did they head down to the mall to purchase this gear from the local Wal-Mart. These days, you can. I saw a kid just a couple of weeks ago wearing what looked to be a very expensive pair of plaid trousers with punk slogans embroidered on them in shiny metallic lettering. Mommy did not knock that together for you during your early-80s Mohawk phase when you were heading out for a night's skanking to The Specials. (See, once upon a time 'skank' was a dance popular amongst those into ska and two-tone music. It was not synonymous with 'ho'. And damnit, I could skank in a pair of Docs right along with the best of 'em.)
Everything can be packaged, and is being packaged, even the things that would have once railed against it with the most force.
The over-branding, the globalisation, the pre-packaging of human culture, in some quarters at least, is helping to create a very incapable populace, one that may not be capable of choosing even the simplest things for itself without a little nudge from the outside. If you think I'm overreacting, take a look at this. It looks like help, but it's someone else making choices for you. You could so easily slip some extremely pointed suggestions into the answer queue on that one.
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Addendum: Can't decide if this is another one of those sites that merely looks like help, but is just another way to coddle a lazy populace, or if it might have some useful purpose. Must say that it smells an awful lot like a quiz show lifeline.
Addendum #2: Yet another site that might only look like help.
