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Show 260 corporation" that sells its brand, not its product. As she describes: These pioneers [the Nikes and Microsofts, and later, the Tommy Hilfigers and Intels] made the bold claim that producing goods was only an incidental part of their operations, and that thanks to recent victories in trade liberalization and labor-law reform, they were able to have their products made for them by contractors, many of them overseas. What these companies produced primarily were not things, they said, but images of their brands. Their real work lay not in manufacturing but in marketing. This formula, needless to say, has proved enormously profitable, and its success has companies competing in a race toward weightlessness: whoever owns the least, has the fewest employees on the payroll and produces the most powerful images, as opposed to products, wins the race. (p. 4) To Klein, then, the logo is a symbol of a grand corporate manipulation scheme that has compromised jobs, public space, and democratic behavior for profits. Corporations use logos to sell brands, not products. Logos produce fetishized corporate images that, in turn, compromise manufacturing jobs, community relations, and democratic governance. According to Klein, corporations began to change their philosophy on brands when Phillip Morris bought Kraft for $12.6 billion dollars in 1988, which was six times the size of the company's value. To Phillip Morris, the logic behind this lucrative buyout was simple: consumers trusted the brand, Kraft, and purchasing the company's "corporate consciousness" (p. 7) at an inflated price would soon pay off. The plan worked, and not long after, the rest of the corporate community soon caught up to the fact that companies thrived by selling brands rather than products. While manufacturing units initially resisted this marketed philosophy, they were eventually forced to downsize or relocate because company CEOs began placing the majority of their assets into marketing firms rather than manufacturing units. In Klein's words, the Phillip Morris purchase sparked "a renewed interest in puffing up brand identities," and "perpetually probing the zeitgeist to ensure that the ‘essence' selected for one's brand would resonate karmically |
