Naomi Klein begins her book by explaining to us how corporations produce brands and not products (Klein xvii). By using Nike as one of her major examples - 'it isn't a running shoe company, but it is about the idea of transcendence through sports' (Klein xvii). To start off with branding is not the same as advertising, but instead advertising, logo licensing and sponsorship all fall under branding. Naomi Klein discusses how the earlier forms of branding came with invention-based ads and hence ‘the factory’. With the machine age came production and reproduction of sameness. (While reading this I couldn’t help but continuously refer back to the theorists Adorno and Horkheimer and their text The Culture Industry: Entertainment as Mass Deception and how they argue how our culture today, specifically major corporations make ‘everything’ the same.) So the role of advertising changed from delivering product news bulletins to building an image around a particular brand-name version of a product (Klein 6). The earlier form of branding hence realized that brands could conjure a feeling and that they were hence not only scientific, but spiritual, inspirational…A great example I found that Klein gave us was thinking of Aunt Jemima’s syrup. Whenever I saw Aunt Jemima a feeling of warmth and comfort flowed through my body and I probably couldn’t explain why.
Whereas I didn’t understand much of this as a child walking by an Aunt Jemima syrup bottle other corporations such as Nike did. Nike is now a perfect example of latter branding and the “lifestyle” form as well as all other major corporations (Starbucks, Cola, Pepsi…). The ‘lifestyle’ form has made corporations such as Nike become cultural accessories and lifestyle philosophers. As mentioned above Nike is no longer just a running shoe but it is about the love of sports and ‘idea of transcendence through sports’. Hence to a sports and fitness fanatic like me reading the slogan “Just do it” or seeing a pro athlete wearing Nike clothes inspired me and unconsciously probably make me like Nike. I remember when I was little I used to love buying new runners. I used to automatically be drawn to the Nike logo and when putting them on for the first time to go for a run I thought of the pro athletes who also wore them and thought they were cool – in other words it made me feel good.
Phil Knight explains, “Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool…its mission is not to sell shoes but to enhance people’s lives through sports and fitness and to keep the magic of sports alive.” (Klein 22) So the latter form of branding is focused on bringing the brand, whatever it may produce, into people’s lifestyle. They shall not look at Nike as a company that produces commodities but it ‘produces’ a lifestyle that you want to have.
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