"No Logo" or "This instead of Stone Angel."

I’ve been wanting to read Naomi Klein’s “No Logo” for a very long time. It’s on my “Books to Read Before I Die” list, a lengthy list of various texts lined up in chronological sequence. Anyway, the sections provided in the course kit serves, for me, really as an appetizer to a main course scheduled some where off in the distant (but hopefully not too distant) soon to be. It’s texts like these that should not be discussed merely at the university level; it’s my belief that these texts would be better used in the high school wherein companies begin their work of branding.

Initially, I never really thought about the word “Brand”. To me it just a word that was used to disseminate one group of products from another group of products. No Logo pushed, with both hands and a running start, me to think beyond that. On page 5 I read, “…Branding and advertising are not the same process… Think of the brand as the core meaning of the modern corporation, and of the advertisement as one vehicle used to convey that meaning to the world.” Essentially, Brands are selling meaning. By choosing to wear a brand consistently, you are in effect choosing to filter the world through the mantra of the brand. Well, at least those that buy into the messages, the meanings the brands are selling. The genesis of branding as told by Klein is simply fascinating to me. To think that “logos were tailored to evoke familiarity and folksiness in an effort to counteract the new and unsettling anonymity of packaged goods”, essentially that instead of simply trying a slew of various products and deciding which suits our taste the most, we, historically, were bribed by images of smiling disembodied heads. What’s even stranger is that “after the product names and characters had been established, advertising gave them a venue to speak directly to would-be consumers.” We take the word of these people that do not exist, people that are created by the brand whose product they are hocking. How did this work? How does it still work today? How does a cartoon bear that uses Charmine toilet tissue paper have any bearing (har-har-har) on what we use in the lavatory?

When I was a kid, probably 4 years old, when I’d used to watch television with my mum and dad they noticed that I didn’t pay attention to the actual shows. Maybe the plots of eighties hit shows like Dallas and The A-Team were beyond my cranium tour-de-force of 4 years old and the commercials were just long enough and exciting enough for me to understand. Who knows? But to this day I find that commercials are the most interesting part of my viewing enjoyment. (I know, I know, commercials are not about branding, they’re about advertising. Don’t worry, I’m going to tie this all in. Trust me.) I enjoy commercials because I love to pick them apart; it’s sort of a game to me and it involves detecting fallacies.

There are 15 types of fallacies, I won’t go on to list them because I’m not even sure if it’s 15. I do know that of those possibly existing 15 fallacies there are 4 that readily set off my bullshit radar when I’m watching commercials, they are: Appeal to Majority, Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Force, and Appeal to Authority. Here are the definitions:

Appeal to Majority: using the fact that large numbers of people believe a proposition to be true as evidence of its truth.

Appeal to Emotion: Trying to get someone to accept a proposition on the basis of an emotion one induces.

Appeal to Force: Trying to get someone to accept a proposition on the basis of a threat.

Appeal to Authority: Using testimonial evidence for a proposition when the conditions for credibility are not satisfied or the use of such evidence is inappropriate.

If you ever have the luxury of watching day-time television, the few magical hours where the Judge shows are on in tandem, you’ll hit all four of these fallacious propositions within the span of two commercial breaks. For your enjoyment and convenience, here are some that I’ve seen.

Under the heading of Appeal to Majority I offer up a commercial I saw for some dude hocking a “learn to play guitar self-teaching dvd”. One of the selling points of the 30 second spot was that the instructor is, “the greatest guitar player to ever teach… a world renowned guitar player that many people have loved his music.” While it maybe true that many people love his music, that simple fact does not give credence to statement that he is actually “the greatest guitar player to ever teach.” Big Rubber Stamp: FALLACIOUS.

Appeal to Emotion is an easy one. Have you ever seen those commercials where a man or woman is walking through a village in a 3rd world country? One of those commercials that shows you images of children whose faces are covered in grime and flies, followed by images of children rooting through garbage to find tin cans, followed by the statement, “For the price of a cup of coffee a day…”? Those are appeals to emotions. While the horrors of impoverished children are a reality that cannot be denied, the presentation of these images to attain monetary support for organizations such as these (and yes, they don’t give 100% of donations to the children) are done with the application of Appeals to Emotions. Sorry, Big Rubber Stamp: FALLACIOUS.

Appeal to Force is a little tricky. While they don’t quite come out and say, “BUY OUR PRODUCT OR WE’LL COME TO YOUR HOME AND BEAT THE SNOT OUT OF YOU!” there was one commercial I’d seen for free computer software. The commercial gave out some stats of infected computers world wide, then they said that sensitive data can be lost, and worst, your identity might be stolen (oh no!) This is a form of the fallacy of Appeal to Force. The commercial tells you to come to the site to get free anti-virus software (which probably has spyware or adware embedded in the download) before you become a statistic. BRS: FALLACIOUS.

Appeal to Authority has to be my favourite. I love watching the lawyer commercials. These day-time lawyers are the ambulance-chasers that give lawyers a bad rap. “Have you slipped or fallen? Have you been taking drug X? Have you been misdiagnosed?” I love these guys. Especially when you see at the bottom, “This actor is not a lawyer.” BRS: FALLACIOUS. Or even better, when they have William Shatner as a spokesperson for the firm of Malaise & Davis. Shatner, known for his role as Captain Kirk, has no formal training in practicing law (he actually attended McGill University where he earned a bachelor of commerce degree) He does however play a lawyer on Boston Public. This type of Shatner-simulacra doesn’t sit well. BIG RUBBER STAMP: FALLACIOUS. (It could, however, just be irregularity. Maybe I need some of that Bran that Shatner is also hocking.)

So okay, yet again I’ve lead you down the garden path, and finally we’re in the clearing. Here’s where I tie up the whole advertising/fallacy/branding thing-a-ma-bob. You see, even though “Advertising is about hawking product…” and “Branding, in its truest and most advanced incarnations, is about corporate transcendence…” the fact remains that branding exists on the belief that, “the products that will flourish in the future will be the ones presented not as “commodities” bus as concepts: the brand as experience, as lifestyle.” What that means is that these brands are doing exactly what the smiling disembodied heads of the past did; the brands are becoming beacons that guide us to the purest essence of their products usage. This is the type of language that the brands simply get a hard-on for. They are not selling products, they are selling pure forms. They are selling you, through their products, conduits through which you can transcend the lowly consumer. All for a low, low price of $9.99.

This is why No Logo should be a text read at the high school level. No age group is more branded, branded like cattle, like high school kids are. They buy into the brands for the status and sometimes for the façade of ideology. Nike says they don’t sell shoes, they sell sport. Who believes that? Who buys (into) that?