Branding

Branding has become one of the all-encompassing features of our contemporary culture. Brands are everywhere and they have caused a great deal of controversy. Naomi Klein argues that companies use branding and advertising as a corporate strategy and that these companies associate their branded products with a certain identity. She believes that these identities have a powerful effect on individuals. But the Economist suggests that it is the consumer that has a controlling effect on the producing company. I believe that both the producer and the consumer have an effect on each other. Supply and demand make the producers and consumers both need each other. The producer has more power over the young consumers, but the educated, experienced consumers overpower the producers so that neither can really dominate the other.

Klein believes that these companies do not simply advertise their products, but use their brands to advertise a certain personality, lifestyle, or identity that one should have. The companies associate their product with this identity, hoping the consumer will relate to this advertised identity and in turn, buy the product. There is really no advertisement or promotion of the actual product being sold; it is the identity. People want to express themselves and their personalities, so they buy the branded products that promote their personality and lifestyle. Young people are especially hooked into the idea of brands because they are still searching to find themselves and their own identity. They believe that brands can help to express themselves and relate to others better. Klein thinks that the producers of these brands have consumers hypnotized to buy the product because they want to be associated with the lifestyle that the brand promotes. The producer is making the identity associated with its product seem in demand and popular, so the consumers, wanting to be connected with that identity, buy the product. Teenagers and young people are more desperate to be popular and accepted by others so they are the consumers that buy into the brands. This fuels the producer to put more effort into advertising the identity, making it seem bigger and more popular, drawing in more consumers. In this way, the producer has control over the consumer.

The Economist, however, believes brands are becoming less popular and companies who put all their time and effort into their brands and the lifestyle they portray are starting to decline in power. Consumers are now becoming immune to the marketing scams and techniques that producers use to convince them to buy their products. As people get older and more educated, they start to realize that there is not one superior brand, but that they are all generally similar in nature. Any college students that take at least one