In the first two chapters of her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Naomi Klein outlines her central argument that brands are bad. The impact of brands on the citizen-consumer has been detrimental in Klein's view, from oligopolies created by brand bullies to the replacement of marketing products with marketing logos. Klein (22) criticizes Nike as a brand bully, explaining how Nike sells an image, not sports apparel. Phil Knight describes the corporation as "a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool." Klein argues that from corporate-school alliances to corporate mergers, brand bullies increasingly control our social experience.
There have been two major trends in marketing or retail since what Klein (10) labels "Marlboro Friday." As Klein (10) describes them as
the deeply unhip big-box bargain stores that provide the essentials of life and monopolize a disproportionate share of the market (Wal-Mart et al.) and the extra-premium 'attitude' brands that provide the essentials of lifestyle and monopolize ever-expanding stretches of cultural space (Nike et al.).
Klein is especially critical of the negative influence of marketing image and logo on adolescents, a key target of most brand bullies. Klein argues that brands and branding has become so ubiquitous and permeates culture to such an extent that it even brands edifices or entire towns.
I think there is one major weakness in Klein's argument that brands are bad. She fails to realize that many of the events or towns that benefit from brand expenditures could not survive without corporate income. She is harshly critical of Nike and other companies like Disney that are keen on branding entire towns. As she writes, "The idea of a fully privatized, branded town or neighborhood is not nearly as far-fetched today as it was only a few years ago, as the inhabitants of Disney's town ...