OUGD401: Essay Research (Klein & Olins)

Following on from a previous blog post where I created a plan on how I will aim to structure my essay, I read more from both Naomi Klein's book 'No Logo' (2000) and Wally Olins' book 'Wally Olins: on Brand' (2003). Both of these had some very good points on brands and how they've consumed not only consumers but society as a whole with their overwhelmingly obtrusive advertising and packaging ways.

Extracted Quotes/Points:

Naomi Klein (No Logo)

Nike were described as a superbrand because of how they're 'a company that swallows cultural space in giant gulps’ due to them having taken over not only the media, sports and also the consumers, yet consumers are for the most part oblivious to this. This isn't the case for all brands, but a large selection of them seem to consume everything in their path such as Nike.

Another point from No Logo was how branding ‘grew with people both physically and mentally as a result more and more people wanted brands and started to care less about the actual clothes themselves’ which in turn meant that brands grew exponentially. This point links in well with my first point I will aim to make in the essay which is about a person's self-identity and what brands they use and how these brands shape the person and their personality.

Wally Olins (Wally Olins: On Brand)

To link in with my planned first point within my essay is Olins' idea of there being a strong relationship between brands and the consumers as he talks about how you can ‘Mix and match to customise, enhance and underline your own particular self-perception’. Which is him referring to mixing and matching brands such as hotel chains where you stay over and the clothing brands you wear.

Olin’s makes another point of ‘branding has moved so far beyond its commercial origins that its impact is virtually immeasurable in social and cultural terms’. This is brands becoming a big part of people’s lives due to the pressure of feeling inferior and how brands are becoming a big part of everything you could imagine.

Another point he made was that ‘The only people you ever see wearing a Barclays Bank t-shirt are a few miserable people who work for Barclays and they don’t seem to like it much’ meaning that the consumers, choose which brands do well and which don’t because of the fact that we buy the brands we like and disregard those we don’t, which supports the third point I aimed to make within the essay that contrasts with this idea that brands hold the power within the relationship.