We Are Farmers! Corporate branding (bum ba rum bum... dumb dumb dumb)

I think there is so much that can be said about The Persuaders. The film takes an interesting look at advertising and it’s sad to say that a lot of the companies no longer exist (can’t wait to say goodbye to Abercrombie & Fitch). It does explain just how far companies are willing to go in order to sell their product even if the brand is not clearly recognized (Song airlines anyone?). While reading the Klein article I could not help but nod in agreement with many of the arguments being presented. “The scaling-up of the logo’s role has been so dramatic that it has become a change in substance. Over the past decade and a half, logos have grown so dominant that they have essentially transformed the clothing on which they appear into empty carriers for the brands they represent”(Klein 28). There is the opening scene where the “vigilante” advertisers scour the city of New York looking for empty wall space to put up their video advertisement, which emphasizes Klein’s description of logo dominance. From the initial sequence of the film it’s clear that the role of advertisers has clearly shaped many aspects of (particularly U.S.) culture. I thought it was very interesting that Klein brought up how companies initially try to develop meaning for their brand but ultimately distance their potential customer base through large-scale marketing techniques, which as we saw in The Persuaders, can even rely on focus groups to determine the “primal desire” linked to customer spending. “We become collectively convinced not that corporations are hitching a ride on our cultural and communal activities, but that creativity and congregation would be impossible without their generosity” (Klein 35). There is this side effect of the interweaving strategies used in advertizing/branding that do echo in the culture of the consumer but as we saw with the Song commercials, they don’t always have the intended effect. When thinking about the way that culture intersects with branding/marketing I almost feel like there is a desperation to appear that culture relies on branding and I just watched a commercial for Huvr, which totes its connection to the Back to the Future franchise as it parades its hover board for its promotional videos. Do new brands need to rely on old cultural items to carve out an existence? For older brands is there more importance in having created a culture surrounding the advertizing even if people don’t necessarily buy the brand (i.e. insurance commercials)? Is Klein correct when saying that people have come to depend on corporate contributions to make the world go round?