Rating: 
Summary: Food for Thought
Review: The people who complain that this book is one big lie are overlooking one significant fact: we can see what is going on for ourselves. Anybody can see that brands are everywhere, advertising is getting into every nook and cranny of our daily existence, and that corporations are increasingly becoming more powerful. "No Logo" does a great job of bringing these ideas together and explaining just where we are in today's corporate climate.
Is the book perfect? Of course not. Both sides of any case can spin the facts in their direction. As readers we don't take every single thing we read to heart, we have to read critically. Klein sometimes suffers from the fact that she feels so strongly about the subject and has surrounded herself with people and information that concern it. She seems to think the opposition to branding is more widespread than it really is. And she has a tendency to get caught up in villifying specific companies for every single thing they do, even policies that a good company might want to implement.
But none of that takes away from the fact that most of her book is dead-on correct and has the ability to really focus our attention on why the growth and extreme advertising tactics need some opposition. This is a perfect book for the average consumer who may not know what branding is doing to our society. Klein brings it home and makes the consumer realize that it is their dollars and their decisions that affect everything this book discusses.
I highly recommend this book to anybody who has ever or will ever buy anything. Look at it critically, in the same way that you should be looking at the companies behind your lifestyle critically.
Rating: 
Summary: Amateurish, Naive, and Wrong
Review: Easily the most distrubing book I have ever read, and only one of two I can recall ever throwing away (Under a Tuscan Sun being the other). Filled with psuedo academic footnotes, out of context quotes, so-called facts, questionable statistics, and contradictory conclusions. The book reads like it was written in a loft during the dot com peak, pontificating on the complexities of globalization and the suffering of exploited sweatshop workers with childish, contradictory statements and "research."
Rating:
Summary: Not bad for someone who obviously cannot count
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 nominal 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 only increased in line with GDP during the last twenty years, then on what grounds would you write a book decrying the explosion in advertising? If people are twice as rich, and spending twice as much, and there are twice as many types of goods, should we be surprised if there is twice the amount of advertising? In other words, either I and my economist 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). 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. There are more obvious points though that most economists can point out. Such as the fact that paying people in India 2 dollars a day for making clothes is better than not paying them to do anything. This is one of the most exasperating elements of the left. Their response to this point is always the same: "But the workers have no choice." Remember this is the same intellectual movement who invariably describe themselves as "pro-choice" on the issue of abortion and other social issues. (For the record I support the right to abortion but that is immaterial.) The left essentially vacillates arbitrarily between the belief that people can make rational decisions and the idea that they cannot. But if people do make rational decisions, then how can forcing poor people in third world countries out of work possibly help them? It cannot, but the reality is that most on the left, idiotic as they are, know this. The Western left, particularly unionists, believe that by taking jobs away from third world workers they can raise their own wages. This is why they do it. Remarkably enough they then try and take the moral high ground. Sure guys, the reason you want to see third world people being ejected out of safe and relatively well paid jobs given to them by Nike and Tommy Hilfiger - to be forced into prostitution, begging or petty theft - is because you care about them. What I would like to know is, of all the people who have read this book and given it a positive review, how many have any knowledge of economics whatsoever. I know of a lot of left wing economists, none that I know of think this book has anything remotely intelligent to offer. This book is written for people who like to break stuff, but want to do it with a clear conscience. It is written for the kids in high school who think Trotsky was a hero by somebody who, like most on the left, is still intellectually in high school thinking Trotsky was a hero.
Rating:
Summary: Too bad the average american has NO INTEREST in the truth!
Review: Klein shows a lot of promise for someone so young! Like Chomsky, Zinn et al, Klein is excellent at showing us what is wrong with the system and where repairs are needed, suppporting her claims with a very healthy amount of research. Too bad the average American is too [set in his ways] to be interested. As long as we have a steady flow of products, TV programs and [adverising] to assuage any anxiety about what is wrong in and outside the US, my average countryman will be satisfied with the status quo and lash out violently against anyone, including the aforementioned authors, who would [try] to break the trance. I think that Klein is sounding a warning to labor that we'd better get off our [rears] and unionize every profession out there. At least that is my idea for response. Klein only seems to advocate responses like creative vandalism of billboards and protests (which are NOT bad ideas!). Klein does not condone socialism in her book, but in my opinion this book points to the inevitablity of two possibilities: corporations as our global slavemasters,with gov'ts as their toadies, or workers finally seizing control of the means of production and their destinies on a global scale.
Rating:
Summary: I don't see why it needs to be balanced.....
Review: Basically the book discussing the true history of brand development and discusses where we are headed. It doesn't look to dwell on the entire history of marketing and branding of products but it does tell us where we are going and I think that is the books most important point. There are a number of companies that have created a brand but make nothing, they are trying to slap a label on products made in third world countries in order to create a whole lifestyle for those in the western world. I think Companies that do that are pretty shallow. Clearly brands are becoming lifestyles and before you know it our whole lives will be branded. The book explores this fact and also explores the movements that are underway to act against branding. I know I can't put this as eloquently as others but to anyone interested in reading this book for whatever reason I can only highly recommend it. I feel more informed about how branding has developed and now works and I feel I understand the issues at work that will effect every part of our lifestyles and cultures. Anyone interested in Globalisation, Ethics and social issues will benefit from reading this insightful book. The only negative thing I can find is the fact that the book tends to be a little repetitive but this is a minor flaw.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-researched? Well-kinda.
Review: I'm inclined to be sympathetic to Klein's perspective. I'm fascinated by marketing, interesting in global justice, and all that good stuff. But what was Klein trying to do in this book? Is she portraying American anti-corporate activism? Is she portraying American anti-sweatshop activism? Is she being an activist in one of those areas? Her history of branding is shoddy at best -- branding goes back waaaaay further than she acknowledges -- and her lack of focus on a particular topic takes away from whatever point she's trying to make, or was that a journalistic portrayal? 'Cause I forget. I am glad that people are publishing on these topics, but I don't think that those of us interested in social justice can afford this lack of rigor.
Rating: 
Summary: The best ¿marketing¿ book ever written?
Review: Simply put, this book is a masterpiece. It's not your typical marketing consultant book by any stretch of the imagination, after all, Naomi, is not of the Zyman, Reis, or Trout family of marketing writers. Those guys write about Positioning, Focus, (excellent works by the way) and how the only thing that matters in marketing is selling more things to more people more often. After reading Zymans "The End of Marketing as We Know It", you'd think there was nothing more important this world than getting people to consume until they explode or go bankrupt. No Logo takes an entirely different tack. Branding, yea, it gets it due here. Most companies in the US don't make anything anymore. They build brands; they don't build products. Nike, whatever companies made the clothes on your back, or branded the computer you're reading this review on didn't sell you a product. They sold you an image. Maybe they sold your kids an image you finally broke down and bought at the expense of something else. Cash strapped schools are great place to set the brand hook early. The kids might come home wired and fat from the Taco Bell lunches and Coke machines around every corner, moving one step closer to diabetes or heart disease every day. These days maybe we should just be happy the brand are there to step in and help out where public funding no longer makes the grade. As long as your kid isn't like Mike Cameron who got suspended for wearing a Pepsi shirt to school on "Coke day", there is nothing to worry about, right? It's intuitive from the consumer side, particularly when we look around and see all the "stuff" we have for which there is really no need. Brands rule, branding "works"; it gets people to buy more stuff more often at increasingly higher prices, often required to offset the cost of the branding campaigns. That's great unless yours is an industry that has or is in the process of outsourcing production of the actual material goods to an "Export Processing Zone" and your job entails some part of the production process. If it can be made in an overseas sweatshop and shipped back over here, chances are it will be in the not to distant future. It'll be interesting to see what effect the move to the brand based company has on the current and future economy of the US. So maybe you think it's crazy (or not) that companies here spend billions just create images and perceptions to drive demand for products made elsewhere. Image becomes everything, however, an image can also be extremely fragile. People in glass houses don't throw rocks anymore, the lawyers protecting those fragile brands do. Sometimes it's shutting down fan sites or user groups on the net or trying to block the dissemination of informational leaflets that may not paint an ideal rosy picture of the brand. As was the case with McDonalds in the McSpotlight case, some times the brands take a beating. The glass house comes crumbling down. Sometimes it just takes a few brave sould to stand up for what they believe in. No Logo will make you think. It might arouse a passion deep within to get involved and look for a ways to bring about change or affect your future career (hint - the money is in brand marketing!). It ought to be required reading for any student of marketing, if for no other reason to provide a sense of balance and awareness of how marketing and branding fits into the business process these days. If ya like No Logo, you might also be interested in: ** The Age of Access by Jeremy Rifkin
** The Divine Right of Capital by Marjorie Kelly
** Unequal Protection by Thom Hartman and on the more pro business side ** "Positioning", a classic by Reis and Trout
** "Focus", another outstanding marketing book by Al Ries
Rating: 
Summary: no where to go now
Review: naomi klein's book is clearly well-researched, and is filled with a myriad of depressing tidbits about our product hungry society, but ultimately, upon finishing the book, i ended up back where i started. i was most certainly riled up in regards to nike's sick ghetto-hunting behavior, superstar contracts, and superstore scariness. the stories of sweatshop employees in third world countries (which i've actually read quite a bit about from other sources) made me want to throw heavy things. it's food for thought. but the problem is that i was riled up, i wanted to throw things... big deal. so i'm educated, now what do i do? where do i go? do i throw out my clothes and wear nothing but hemp? do i join some hippy protest scene, leaving my cats, clothes and job behind? it's just frustrating. i read books like this and then don't know what to do with my knowledge? spread it? sure. but our world has become the title of her book. how do we escape? make a difference, without moving to a cave somewhere in the mountains? i'm ranting. i'll stop. i just wish people like naomi klein would offer good solutions. i don't shop at the gap. but everywhere else is just the same. so read this for information, but don't expect much help by way of making a difference. oh, and the book drags a bit in places.
Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful must-read, but skimps on constructive advice
Review: ..
SHORT STORY: This is a very, very interesting book regardless of what the "ending" or the "higher purport" may be and irrespective of the pseudo-intellectual nitpicking by a number of other reviewers. So get it, read it and enjoy it. Even if it doesn't ruffle your fancies, it brims with real factual evidence about the dark side of big business so at the very least you'll leave with some very interesting information off a single, compact compilation. THE LONG, WINDING RAMBLE: The basic premise of the book is to highlight how advertising and general business practices have changed in the last twenty years. Essentially, companies decided that they were no longer in the business of selling products, because products are messy, duplicable, or even improvable. But if you are selling an idea, an experience, a set of associations, it is much harder for another company to compete with you. Think of Tommy Hilfiger for instance -- clothes manufactured in China and India for throw-away costs, but their designs are frantically devoured globally at horrendous price tags. This is why branding is big, and sometimes clandestine, business. The book is divided into four sections: 'No Space,' 'No Choice,' 'No Jobs' and 'No Logo.' 'No Space' is about the cluttering of our public spaces with ads; 'No Choice' describes different tactics used by big-name brands to drive independent retailers out of business; 'No Jobs' takes aim at sweatshop labour but with the corporations' "Brand, not products!" mentality in mind (it also includes details of Klein's trip to an Export Processing Zone just south of Manila); finally, 'No Logo' documents the global movement against branding and many of the organizations and people behind the revolt. POSITIVES: 1. Klein's fluid writing style really shines throughout this book and her arguments are sharp and well targeted. 2. A delightful plethora of interesting, superbly researched facts and statistics that'll open your eyes, sometimes vis-a-vis brands that you'd least expect to be embroiled with anything ulterior. 3. I found that each section contained one exceptional chapter. In 'No Space,' "The Branding of Learning" (chapter 4) is simply wonderful, especially for students of branding. You'll read about grade school kids making Nike sneakers as "an educational experience" and a 19-year-old student being suspended for wearing a Pepsi shirt on "Coke Day." In "No Jobs," "The Discarded Factory" (chapter 9) offers the same old shocking facts about sweatshop labour with a fresh perspective which only makes the situation seem worse. Etc. NEGATIVES: 1. Where No Logo fails is in its attempt to tie these different themes together. With an attempt of this genre, it would have been very unseful to see some "solutions" or recommendations to the issue that Klein raised. For instance, she argues that companies have to spend more money on 'branding', and this is why production is moving to sweatshops. Companies can't afford to have factories and a brand, so they ditched the factories. But its not just the big brands that are made in sweatshops. Nike runners may be made in Indonesia, but so are the local-brand runners in your supermarket. Gap shirts are made in sweatshops, but so are the shirts in the department store. The sweatshops aren't a result of branding, they're a product of the desire of companies to cut costs. Some companies will then keep their prices low, while others will spend a lot on advertising, but hope to make even more by charging higher prices. In the end, Nike is bad, Gap is bad -- but what should they do in lieu of their current practices? 2. Related to the above point, Klein skimps on examples of the "good" companies or what is commonly tossed around as "best practices". 3. Perhaps many of the corporate ties within the open source software community are very much along the lines of Klein's notion of an ideal balance between corporations and communities. A discussion of open source projects -- especially coming from a journalist of the caliber of Naomi Klein -- is amiss. All in all, a very thought-provoking read, but too much time is spent talking about 'subverting' advertisements or painting over billboards. Consumer boycotts are explored, even while their weaknesses are admitted. So there's less room to explore ways that we in the west can help sweatshop workers get organised, and how we can help their struggles, which should be the objectives of any campaign. As a commercial-political treatise or as an analytical guide to action, which is what the book could easily have been, this book is a little disappointing. A 4-star material nevertheless!
Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: I figured that this book would be essentially a jeremiad -- inveighing against marketing, advertising, the almighty brand, etc. There was a high potential for claptrap. The book is definitely anti-brand, etc., but it also turned out to be a far more thoughtful, thorough, and well-researched one that I would have guessed. Obviously, Naomi Klein's focus is on the rise of brands. One of the points she makes that I find pretty compelling is that while marketers go all out to make their brands a part of the public consciousness (Nike, Disney, etc.), they have a different point of view when an opponent mocks their brand, and suddenly begin to cry copyright violation, etc. I agree with Klein's point that they can't have it both ways: If a brand is in your face, it's either in the public domain or it isn't. It's either up for grabs, or it should be restricted. Another interesting argument is that companies are now so punch-drunk on brand power that they are literally willing to sacrifice workers and factories in order to devote more resources to brand-building & marketing. That may sound silly, but she has good quotes from CEOs themselves making this argument. On the other hand, when she talks about how big media companies cross-sell their properties and so on, she is believing in the power of synergy more than is warranted. It's easy to quote from companies bragging about how they're going to use "integrated strategies" or whatever to make some brand a huge cultural force. But as often as not those boasts are empty, and the campaign flops, no matter how many "synergies" are in place. "If coffee houses, why not publishing, asks Starbucks." Well, Starbucks' attempt at a magazine failed. Like Klein, they overestimated the power of their brand. Finally, there is Klein's surprising optimism. She believes that the rule of brands is seriously challanged by various forms activism that gathered strength through the 1990s. This is interesting, but not entirely convincing. She acts as though Nike is about to go out of business, but in fact its revenues are even higher today than when this book was published. That said, this is not a thinly argued book -- Klein has done a lot of research, and even if you don't agree with all of her conclusions (as I didn't) you should respect what she has to say.
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