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Rating:
Summary: Open up your EYES
Review: As an expert in the marketing field, I find this book refreshing. Ms. Klein's research is self-evident and easy to digest while putting many things into perspective. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. In fact, working in the marketing industry, I hesitate to recommend it to my peers because of it's inherent power and insight. I can't believe there are no other reviews... BUY THIS BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: A terribly stupid book
Review: Don't waste your time with this book. Klein was a pampered brat growing up in an affluent society and her guilt trip led her to write a book that would normally have died a quick death if it weren't for the fact that left has gotten hold of her as their poster girl.
The arguments are weak and the book, though entertaining at times, reads like something a high school student, hoping to impress her teacher, would have written.
Don't buy it.


Rating:
Summary: Naomi had better do year nine maths again
Review: On my version on page 11, there is a little graph that purportedly shows how advertising has taken over the world in the last twenty years.
The numbers are startling; from a figure of just fifty billion dollars in the late 1970s to a figure of 200 billion dollars in the late 1990s. This compared to a figure of just 4 billion in 1960. The only problem you see, is that she has not (or at least not as far I can see), either taken into account inflation or the growth in GDP during this time. So if GDP and inflation together had averaged 7 per cent a year for twenty years (which seems reasonable), then it stands to reason that advertising expenditure would increase four times. Now if this was some throwaway aspect of the book, not really all that important, then it may not matter, unfortunately it is the premise behind the entire story. If real advertising expenditure has not increased during the last twenty years, then on what grounds would you write a book decrying the explosion in advertising? In other words, either I and my friends are wrong and missed some important labels or the book is a complete fraud.
The other important point is that if advertising expenditure was 4 billion in 1960 and 50 billion in 1980, then surely the rate of growth during this period was far greater than in the next twenty years?
What can I say, but this book is unbelievably stupid. The entire style of the book is taking unrepresentative examples and trying to flog them off as representing all advertising behaviour. Not only that half of her examples hardly amount to any sort of malfeasance on the part of corporations anyway, some of the heinous crimes they commit amount to employing black people (Nike hiring Tiger Woods), and selling goods at a cheaper rate (Wal-Mart). At one point she castigates a security guard for not being up to date on his Ayn Rand; talk about a strawman, this author actually believes that if she can outsmart the average security guard, this somehow makes her arguments airtight. This book reminds me of Michel Foucault, lots and lots of facts, and stories and gripping yarns, all thoroughly researched, but the stories just simply don't say what the author wants them to say, and even if they did, they only constitute a small and non-random sample anyway. To be fair, Foucault was ten times more brilliant than Klein, and he would never have forgotten to include inflation in time series data.
But I think the worst part of this book, is its outright refusal to contemplate the other side of the argument. When you want to write a polemic then you give your own side of the argument and then try to refute as best you can the relevant arguments of the other side. The counter argument to Klein's polemic is that brands combat a phenomenon called asymmetric information. If I do not know the quality of a particular product a priori, and somebody can demonstrate credibly (say by advertising) that they have a vested interest in the quality of the product then I am likely to pay a premium price in order to have the "guarantee" of quality. This is because I, like most people am risk averse. This is one of the main reasons that we have brands, there are other reasons to advertise of course but this is one argument that Klein does not try to refute at all.

Rating:
Summary: Naomi had better do year nine maths again
Review: On my version on page 11, there is a little graph that purportedly shows how advertising has taken over the world in the last twenty years.
The numbers are startling; from a figure of just fifty billion dollars in the late 1970s to a figure of 200 billion dollars in the late 1990s. This compared to a figure of just 4 billion in 1960. The only problem you see, is that she has not (or at least not as far I can see), either taken into account inflation or the growth in GDP during this time. So if GDP and inflation together had averaged 7 per cent a year for twenty years (which seems reasonable), then it stands to reason that advertising expenditure would increase four times. Now if this was some throwaway aspect of the book, not really all that important, then it may not matter, unfortunately it is the premise behind the entire story. If real advertising expenditure has not increased during the last twenty years, then on what grounds would you write a book decrying the explosion in advertising? In other words, either I and my friends are wrong and missed some important labels or the book is a complete fraud.
The other important point is that if advertising expenditure was 4 billion in 1960 and 50 billion in 1980, then surely the rate of growth during this period was far greater than in the next twenty years?
What can I say, but this book is unbelievably stupid. The entire style of the book is taking unrepresentative examples and trying to flog them off as representing all advertising behaviour. Not only that half of her examples hardly amount to any sort of malfeasance on the part of corporations anyway, some of the heinous crimes they commit amount to employing black people (Nike hiring Tiger Woods), and selling goods at a cheaper rate (Wal-Mart). At one point she castigates a security guard for not being up to date on his Ayn Rand; talk about a strawman, this author actually believes that if she can outsmart the average security guard, this somehow makes her arguments airtight. This book reminds me of Michel Foucault, lots and lots of facts, and stories and gripping yarns, all thoroughly researched, but the stories just simply don't say what the author wants them to say, and even if they did, they only constitute a small and non-random sample anyway. To be fair, Foucault was ten times more brilliant than Klein, and he would never have forgotten to include inflation in time series data.
But I think the worst part of this book, is its outright refusal to contemplate the other side of the argument. When you want to write a polemic then you give your own side of the argument and then try to refute as best you can the relevant arguments of the other side. The counter argument to Klein's polemic is that brands combat a phenomenon called asymmetric information. If I do not know the quality of a particular product a priori, and somebody can demonstrate credibly (say by advertising) that they have a vested interest in the quality of the product then I am likely to pay a premium price in order to have the "guarantee" of quality. This is because I, like most people am risk averse. This is one of the main reasons that we have brands, there are other reasons to advertise of course but this is one argument that Klein does not try to refute at all.