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Are you pro logo or no logo?
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 It's too simple to say, "If you don't like it, don't buy it," because many brands have become powerful by targeting and influencing the very young - they don't have much of a chance of saying "no." Furthermore, when a brand takes over a market, it becomes harder to find alternatives. You could argue that's an example of majority rule -- branding doesn't have checks and balances. My real concern, however, is the way branding has infiltrated cinema ("Cast Away" and "You've Got Mail," to name two blatant examples). And following the horrible events of Setember 11, CNN often seemed as concerned about "branding" their images of the disaster as about reporting events. 
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Barbara Kramer Zarins, bkz communications - October 1, 2001
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Naomi Klein is right and wrong. But she is not the devil's advocate. "No logo" is a logo itself as her book needed a title, a (brand) name to identify her product. A good one too, her message asked for impact. Brand names have good and bad roles for the consumer. One good thing of branding for the consumer -- and not mentioned in the Economist -- is that a consumer can punish a company that brands its products or services simply by not buying that brand anymore and choosing another (that is available and of a certain quality). But this can of course only work in product categories where there are more than one or two prominent brands. Where ‘reasonable’ choice exists. This is obviously not the case in product categories like cola beverages, operating systems and junkfood chains. Which means, in my opinion, Naomi Klein is right if she refers to brands like Coke, Pepsi, McDonald's and Microsoft. Nobody has to argue about her book title being a (successful) brand name itself. A book reader however is in the position of choosing any other book in the same store. However, if you want a can of cola in Cairo, you have no choice but Coke.
A world without brands (and no logos) however is no alternative. It means no choice and no consumer rights. We should be all pro and contra logo's to some extent. We can’t live with or without them. Major western companies (and in particular a brand like Nike) however are abusing countries like India, Indonesia and Korea by underpaying their citizens. And we need to look it this as crime. It is no terrorism, but it definitely is crime. Letting children do work we would never want our own children to do is a bad thing in itself. And that’s what Naomi Klein is telling us too. What's there to argue about that? And the power of branding is not to be understated. People buy what they see and hear. We are all weak Nike runners. Or aren’t we?
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Camiel Verberne, Brand Strategist, The Brand Building - October 1, 2001
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In any discussion about brands, it is first important to discuss the real role of branding in marketing communication. This role is to:
(1) give the company CREDIBILITY in order to
(2) enable messages to influence its publics.
As such, a strong brand SUPPORTS the buying message. The more credibily, the more support. The power of great logos are those which are credibility-based. When they are credibility-based they convey the company as "expert", "trustworthy" and "forward-thinking". Just as credible people.
To take this a step further, the power of brands are also credibility-based in everything a company says or does from logos to pr to advertising to company architecture. And it does so with consistency. This is integrated communication with the sole purpose of establishing company credibility.
And it must be real, because how the company acts and produces products and/or services is also branding. All must work as a system to establish credibility. Most companies still don't understand the role of branding as a means to establishing credibility. Not to have high credibility is a waste of company communication dollars --- logo or not, branding system or not.
Think of branding as a means of establishing company credibility and the question whether or not to give branding importance seem very mute. Think of branding as establishing the company as "expert", "trustworthy" and "forward-thinking" --- both visually and verbally. May the power be with you!
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William L. Haig, Author - October 1, 2001
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It's not about the Logo. Branding in the modern world is about communciation and manipulation - of course it is, why else would we do it. It's the quickest and easiest way to expand upon the success of an earlier product or event. We use it to say that our latest offering is as good as the last one, a way to say to people "if you felt your last experience of us fullfilled you're values, so will this". The Brand is the stamp that says this product, store, event, etc is up to standard, whatever that standard be, quality, price, morals, ethics. If we mess it up and get it wrong we damage the Brand and the Business for the future (que - Benetton), that's why we spend so much time trying to get it right. It's not about Pro-Logo or No-Logo, Logo's are part of the communication, Branding is about Values and communicating them.
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Adrian Cook, Market Analyst, The UK's favourite Health & Beauty Retailer - October 2, 2001
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Perhaps Nike would never had gained their amazing brand power had consumers been more sophisticated in their understanding of how brands are created and how to see what the real values lying within a brand are. How many young kids would have been attracted to the Nike image had they also known that the sneakers in question were being made by people working for little money, often in very poor conditions, in poverty stricken countries?
The Nike 'message' is one of empowering people to enact their dreams and ideas, but many of their workers in the developing world/export zones can never have any chance of enacting their dreams because they are working on subsistence wages. As Klein says, they and their surroundings are so poor and ugly as to be unswooshable.
One factor that could improve the current damaging gap between brand image and product/service reality is media education. Those of us in 'the west' spend a great deal of our time consuming, but our awareness of the real story about companies, products and services is very poor. Many of us are almost illiterate when it comes to the question of how products and brands are made. For example, millions of people who would never condone animal cruelty buy household cleaners that have involved the painful death of animals such as dogs, cats and monkeys. Between the clean brand on the shelf and the blood in the laboratory lies ignorance.
Becoming educated about businesses and products takes time, and sometimes you have to realise that brands you once liked are actually stinking hypocrites. But the liberating thing is that once you become discerning about what you buy you can celebrate the brands you choose. OK, few products/services are totally free of some shadowy side, but some try harder to be better 'world citizens' than others.
The morality of a brand is a terribly, terribly complicated issue, but if we don't start asking questions about the things we buy then we are simply encouraging the worst excesses of capitalism, rather than the best possibilities of capitalism.
We should consider the value of increasing investment in the media education of our children. If kids leave school with more savvy they are less likely to be taken in by brands that lie (and more likely to reward brands that don;t lie with their custom). Perhaps this is an opportunity for all of us working in the brand business. Who better to teach the next generation how to decipher brand meanings and analyse what's what in productds and marketing than the very people who create the messages and ideas in the first place? It's time for some of the energy and imagination we pour into commerce to go into education.
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Tim Rich - October 8, 2001
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Do brands really make decisions easier for people? Surely decisions would be even simpler if there was no brand choice, and 'consumers' were simply presented with one product in each product category? I am not suggesting that this is preferable, simply pointing out that brands don't necessarily make life simpler. In fact, I think brands make very heavy demands on people, both mentally and emotionally. Sometimes this can be pleasurable (some people enjoy buying a new car, for example), sometimes reassuring (those cases when you need to really trust a company with your life or your money, say). Othertimes it can be frustrating (think of the debt-ridden parent whose kids want expensive sportswear), confusing (is this new 'Organics' range really better for me and better for the world?) and depressing (Why do my friends like this product when they know it involves unnecessary animal experimentation?).
I think our everyday life is full of intricate and taxing brand decisions. I discovered something quite interesting though - if, when examining a brand, you mentally calculate the cost of making the product or service then look at the price quoted, the differential between the 2 tells you how much of your hard-earned cash is going on your desire to be associated or engaged with that brand. OK, this is simplistic and the figures are probably somewhat inaccurate, but give the brand owner the benefit of the doubt on 10% of the figures involved and in all cases you will still be shocked. Try it out next time you buy sportswear - sobering.
As for whether people create their own interpretations of a brand’s messages – of course they do, but the question is this; what information are they basing their interpretations on? I held a positive feeling about Nike inside me for many years, inspired partly by their brilliant advertising and design. Then I started to read about their manufacturing strategies and my feelings changed. The issue is not whether people make up their own interpretations – anyone sensible knows they do – it is on what basis those interpretations are made.
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Tim Rich - October 10, 2001
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A brand that means "manipulative attempt to whitewash over third-world production..." to you, may mean "cool, stylish, and empowering" to me. That's why there are no universally accepted brands, few brands that last, and why new brands are born and grow. As long we have brands and the ability to form opinions of them, we will never have "no space, no choice, no job or no logo." Creativity and credibility are the greatest assets a company can have.
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Bruce Dunbar, VP, Brand Marketing, Oppenheimer Funds - October 19, 2001
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Perhaps I'm being a bit simplistic, but a logo is simply a symbol used in place of several attributes that are too long to list and when clumped together become a brand. Strip off the logo and the product retains the other attributes. Likewise, people naturally group things (and brand them subconsciously) as a way of dealing with the overwhelming amount of information available to them. Logos help consumers understand what comes with a product, making decisions easier, and if there were no official logo, people would still find a way to characterize a product in a differentiating manner so they will 'know' what a product is about, without having to know. So until the day when everything comes wrapped in a white box and people lose their natural inclination for processing the world into units, brands, clumps, it really doesn't matter if you take away an official logo...they will still characterize the products in the simplest terms possible, probably one word, maybe two.
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Paul - October 22, 2001
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To argue whether branding should be or should not be is like arguing whether rain makes the sidewalk wet.
Branding happens, whether we will it to happen or not. When customers come in contact with products, they inevitably form brand impressions. The next question is what a product does to encourage its customers to have the "right" brand impression.
Yes, there are companies who, by virtue of vast economic resources, attempt to connect with people through brute-force. But these companies, many of which Naomi Klein describes, actually represent only a sliver of the branding world, despite their visibility in popular media. For the vast majority of products, brute force is not an option, and they encourage their customers to create the right brand impressions through the real interactions of their ongoing transactional relationship.
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Steve Yastrow, Brand Editor, tompeters.com - October 23, 2001
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back to debate
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