Anti-branding as an activists' tool - the medium becomes the message

Anti-branding is a marketing device, and suffers from all the weaknesses inherent in such devices. The attack on individual corporations is only the medium, but the medium ends up becoming the message. For what does anti-branding achieve? It succeeds in damaging the reputation of this or that brand. It might even damage the sales of this or that brand. However, no more than a tiny fraction of those who, for example, register the attacks upon Nike will end up adopting a thorough-going anti-capitalist ideology. This is perhaps not surprising since the anti-branders themselves adopt such a mish-mash of ideologies. But even the idea that the anti-branders are all agreed upon, a rejection of consumerism, is unlikely to be instilled in more than a few.

The most widespread response of those registering these campaigns will be to still buy a pair of Nike trainers, just to feel a tinge of guilt about it, or to decide, well, lets buy another brand of trainers. As Klein acknowledges, Reebok's have 'rushed to capitalise on Nike's controversies by positioning itself as the ethical shoe alternative... to make sure that consumers find what they are looking for in Reebok, the company has taken to handing out high-profile Reebok Human Rights Awards to activists who fight against child labour and repressive regimes.'127 To further underline their commitment to human rights, Reebok have, along with musician Peter Gabriel and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, founded an organisation called Witness. This provides hand-held video cameras to 'front-line' activists so that they can document human rights abuses.128

The Reebok/Nike case is not an isolated incident. The discomfort of one company is often a boon to its competitors. The anti-branders are thus, while trying to discredit all major corporations, succeeding in boosting the sales of some corporations at the expense of others. This is all very well for the kind of activists whose aim it is to make a given company change a specific policy or practice, but clearly achieves very little for those who are trying to bring about a rejection of the ethos of consumption.

Anti-branding has become popular because it has learnt to utilize popular prejudices

Anti-branding has popular resonance because, just like the brands, it has learnt to utilise popular prejudices. One need only look at the anti-branders' favoured targets. McDonald's, for example, while its customers continue to pour in, has long been at the receiving end of all kinds of urban myths. Many when surveyed seem to believe urban myths about McDonald's - such as McDonald's apocryphal 'funding of the IRA' and their supposed 'cutting down of the tropical rain forests and killing endangered species' - and, what is more, 'know' them to be 'true'. These claims are, quite simply, nonsense. However, showing up these ludicrous allegations for the fabrications that they are will not shift the widespread belief in the truth of them and other, similar, claims. They, after all, make for a much better story than mundane reality does.

McDonald's has been a pet hate of myriad people ranging from folk-weavers who will only eat 'natural food', whatever that may be, to suburban housewives who feel that McDonald's is vulgar and the opening of a new branch down the road will lower the tone of the neighbourhood. When the McLibel Two pillory McDonald's or French farmer activist Jose Bove smashes up a branch of McDonald's while it is under construction,129 they become heroic figures for many who do not remotely share their wider politics. It is hardly surprising that these figures find such a receptive audience. They are not challenging popular perceptions, but confirming them. This does not, however, mean that suburban housewives will be converted to anti-consumerism, let alone green anarchism.

McDonald's is an extreme example. More generally, however, attacks on the multi-national corporations behind the brands are likely to find receptive audiences. This is because large numbers of the public are willing to believe virtually any myth about large corporations. The public is simultaneously facing in two directions on this issue. While it is very keen on the brands these corporations provide and trusts the goods they buy from them, at the same time large corporations are widely perceived as distant, greedy and powerful - and thus somewhat sinister. Contrary to the anti-branders' claims, anti-branding is not challenging a general atmosphere where the brands have manipulated the public into believing that the big corporations behind the brands are on 'their' side. It is simply reinforcing popular anti-corporate, anti-big business prejudices. Nor, to any significant extent, is anti-branding achieving its aim in spreading a broader anti-capitalist ideology. The irony is that, whilst large corporations as a species are widely disliked and the public is willing to believe all kinds of claims about them, the success of the brands themselves is based upon trust and its corollary, reputation.

The true basis of branding - an instant source of information

The anti-branders misinterpret the function of branding. Only in certain instances is it a means of projecting a youthful, rebellious or caring image upon a particular corporation's products. Even in those instances, that is not all branding is. Much more importantly branding is an extremely useful invention in that it transmits a vast amount of information to the consumer in an instant. Without branding the consumer would have to go into each and every purchase blind. For branding is a body of accumulated knowledge. This knowledge may often have been obtained through advertising, but then the product must correspond, and live up to, the consumer's expectations. Even Klein acknowledges, that if a product does not live up to consumers' expectations, in this case the 1998 film Godzilla, however good its advertising, its wider marketing and its supposedly foolproof synergistic strategies, it will not succeed. 'None of this could compensate for the simple fact that nearly everyone who saw Godzilla warned their friends to stay away, and they did, in droves.'130 Consumer brands rely on repeat purchases from their customers for their continued success. It is thus even more important for consumer brands than for films to live up to their customers expectations. Branding means that consumers know what they can expect to obtain when making a purchase. It is a form of quality assurance for the customer. It is regulation by the market place.

The anti-branders, through concentrating their attacks on the kinds of youth-oriented brands which appeal to the activists' own target audience, ignore the breadth and scope of branding. They ignore the importance of brands in nearly every other facet of the economy. From house repairs to antique dealing, newspapers to universities, corporate finance to insurance, branding is central. Some of these brands, such as highly specialist retailers, may be minute and amount to one shop. Others are vast. They all, however, perform the same function. They give the consumer instant information.

Companies in every sector of the economy seek to build up a reputation for their products and use this reputation, whatever it might be in the specific instance, to boost their sales. If they do not live up to this reputation, they might for a while be able to live on their past reputation, but they will indubitably eventually be punished by the market place. Branding thus encourages corporations to provide a good product and deliver what their customer desire.

The rise of certification as another form of branding

It is interesting how, when companies are unable to build up a strong enough reputation on their own, groups of companies often band together or seek the endorsement of a third party to obtain some of the reputational advantages of branding. This phenomenon can be seen in the specialist craft associations that exist for everything from butchers to picture framers. Just as with branding, customers know what they can expect, in this case a certain quality of service and product, by using the members of such associations.

The phenomenon can also be seen in the endless certification schemes running today assuring customers that such and such a product meets such and such a standard, the standard frequently being of an environmental or ethical nature. These schemes cover a diverse range of issues. To list but a few of these certification schemes: FairTrade certifies that Southern producers are being paid reasonably for their produce; the Forest Stewardship Council that the wood used in a product is being harvested sustainably; and the Soil Association that produce is organic.131 There is even a proposed scheme in the UK to certify the safety of sex aids.132 All such schemes are an attempt to gain the advantages of branding.

The fact is that progressive middle-class opinion finds it more palatable to want to obtain instant information about how a vegetable has been grown than to know what a burger and fries will taste like, and how long it will take to be served, before entering a food outlet. This does not, however, make the former any less an example of branding than the latter. The desire for either piece of instant information is no less 'valid' than for the other. Both are forms of quality assurance and market regulation. This role of branding is tacitly acknowledged by much radical opinion in their support for the legalisation of currently illegal drugs.

The legalisation of drugs: the tacit acknowledgement of the benefits of branding by radical opinion

Calls for the legalisation of some or all drugs have considerably moved toward the political mainstream. In Britain, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister Peter Lilley has called for the legalisation of cannabis,133 The Economist has called for all drugs to be legalised,134 and the influential House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee of backbench MPs has called for the drug laws to be liberalised.135 However campaigners for the legalisation of drugs, especially ecstasy and cannabis, in general still tend to be people who see themselves as radicals. Indeed they often see the prohibition of drugs as somehow an establishment conspiracy, and strongly identify themselves with the ethos of anti-branding campaigns and the notion of ever increasing corporate power.

One of the main arguments for a change in the law is that if drugs were legalised those that choose to consume currently illegal drugs would know what they were obtaining, and know that it was of a certain quality, ie, the drugs would not be adulterated with noxious substances. Is not the progressive opinion that espouses such views acknowledging the benefits of branding? Are they not in fact calling for the branding of drugs? The quasi-branding of ecstasy is already occurring in the proliferation of different varieties of ecstasy, such as White Doves, Rhubarb and Custards, or, in an echo of legitimate brands appropriating radical chic, Malcolm Xs.136

This emergence of quasi-brands may point to how powerful and useful a tool branding is in that it even emerges in the least auspicious of circumstances. Such quasi-brands in illegal goods, however, obviously have none of the advantages of real brands: the brands have no legal protection and there is thus not only the certainty of unhindered, unrestrictable counterfeiting but there is also no incentive to maintain quality as anyone can manufacture the product. The benefits that are ascribed to the legalisation of drugs are obviously partly simply the consequence of moving from an illegal to a legal market. There are, however, also, and perhaps more importantly, the benefits which would accrue from the emergence of real, legal brands in such currently illegal substances. Next time radicals think of marching for the legalisation of cannabis or ecstasy, they should consider that they are in fact extolling the benefits of branding and corporatisation.

Ironically, if this were to happen these protesters would probably soon be highlighting the long term health risks associated with cannabis and the very real dangers of ecstasy. This is borne out by the way many people who see tobacco companies as the incarnation of evil for pushing a noxious substance somehow see those pushing another noxious substance, cannabis, as harbingers of freedom. This is even though tobacco companies operate in a legal framework which tightly constrains their actions and holds them to account, while peddlers of illegal substances have no such accountability. Progressive opinion seems to prefer to put its trusts in gangsters rather than multinational corporations.

Anti-branding represents the dumbing down of anti-capitalism

What then of the claims that brands are pernicious because they sell a particular lifestyle? As argued previously, branding is about much more than simply selling an association with a lifestyle. On occasions, however, association with a particular lifestyle is undoubtedly part of what the consumer is trying to obtain. Consumers may wish to be identified as a certain type of person and may consume products accordingly. Although this is undoubtedly exploited by brands, it is not a phenomenon of branding. All kinds of decisions about taste are connected with how individuals perceive themselves and wish others to perceive them. It is undeniable that whether someone cultivates an interest in opera and Austen, or in dog racing and soap operas, or for that matter in anti-capitalist protest is partly a question of how that person wishes to be perceived by others and the type of lifestyle that person wishes to be associated with. The relationship between what one consumes and questions of lifestyle is not intrinsically one of branding. It is a far more deep seated phenomenon.

Earlier anti-capitalists were aware of this. They too, of course, had to find a reason for hating capitalism. They thus argued that the bourgeoisie constructed what was good taste and what was not, what was high art and what was low, what was refined and what was vulgar, as a means of maintaining their own power. Through their control and construction of culture, the argument went, the bourgeoisie maintained their iron control on society. This was the essential argument of authors from Thorstein Veblen, writing at the end of the nineteenth century, in his The Theory of the Leisure Class137 to Pierre Bourdieu, who died in 2002 and was seen by some as the last of the French public intellectuals of the left in the tradition of Jean Paul Sartre,138 in his Distinction - A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste139. The argument, with this or that variation, is in fact still often heard today in Marxist and Marxisant academic discourse.

The anti-branders have, however, replaced this sophisticated and subtle, if erroneous, argument with a simplistic, naive and equally false one. Instead of arguing that questions of judgement and taste are complex phenomena which are somehow controlled by a ruling class in their own interests, such questions have been reduced to attacks upon Nike's advertising budget. This is not the only instance of how today's protesters seem afraid of complex arguments. As this examination of the anti-corporate movement shows, anti-branding is a marketing device for a wider anti-capitalist message. The necessity to put forward a clear simple message to sell a product, in this case anti-capitalism, has meant that that product has itself been simplified. What this amounts to is the dumbing down of anti-capitalism.

Brands are not impregnable

Perhaps as a corollary of concentrating in their attacks, albeit as a marketing device, upon the alleged iniquities of individual corporations rather than putting forward a wholesale critique of capitalism as a system from the start, the notion has arisen that individual corporations and their brands have become impregnable. This is another case of how the medium of anti-branding has become the message itself. The notion of the impregnable brand is, however, itself false.

Today's powerful brands often had humble origins

What is interesting is that those brands which are most widely attacked are not those set up by some large multi-national after extensive market research and heavy reliance upon focus groups. They are those which, from small beginnings, have risen to become what they are today through offering a new innovative product which has caught the public imagination. McDonald's is perhaps the prime example of this. As the highly critical history Fast Food Nation140 records, McDonald's started with a single drive-in restaurant in 1937. In 1948, its founders, the McDonald brothers, came up with the revolutionary idea of eliminating most items from their menu, scrapping knives, forks, and plates, and introducing a conveyor belt style kitchen. This was the first place to take the principles of factory line production and apply them to food. It meant that going out to buy food became affordable to all Americans. It also sought to attract families, rather than just the usual clientele of adolescents that were the mainstay of US diners at the time. A small time salesman of milkshake mixers, Ray Kroc, then came up with the idea of franchising McDonald's and its innovative 'Speedee Service System' across America.

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation's author, goes on to record how Dunkin' Donuts, Wendy's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King (then called Insta-Burger King), and Domino's Pizza all had similar humble beginnings in the years after World War II. Kentucky Fried Chicken, for example, acquired its Colonel Saunders mascot because its founder could not afford to advertise his new food outlet, so as a publicity stunt, dressed up as a Kentucky Colonel.141 Obviously many other attempts to establish fast food chains failed to catch the public imagination. Those that succeeded did so because they offered the public a product they wanted at an affordable price, were at the right place at the right time, and were truly innovative. Many of these innovations, whatever one may think of the finished fast food product, are indubitably works of genius. This is why they succeeded. They did not have the backing of vast corporations, and did not break through due to their commercial size and power, advantages that they quite simply did not have in their early days.

Other consumer brands have obviously been launched by vast corporations using the whole panoply of modern methods of market research. However, companies with innovative ideas that catch the public imagination can today still grow from small beginnings into prevalent high street brands. The Body Shop, having secured a £4,000 bank loan, started with one shop in Brighton in 1976.142 Many other leading brands, including Nike, Ben & Jerry's, Reebok, Esprit, Pizza Express, The Gap, had similarly humble origins. If brands such as McDonald's and The Body Shop can rise from nothing to what they are today, so can others.

Leading brands can also be challenged and decline as rapidly as they rose. Marks & Spencer, once one of the mainstays of British shopping, famously hit difficulties. This decline was often blamed in media reports on the merciless onslaught by the brands. Such reporting supposes that Marks & Spencer is somehow not a brand itself. One of the brands which was seen as spearheading the onslaught on the traditional High Street, The Gap, was itself reported to have lost some of its lustre, and shown a marked down-turn in profits, in autumn 2001.143

Various league-tables of the world's top brands, in terms of monetary value, are drawn up every year. What is interesting is the frequency with which the corporations that appear in these league-tables change. Moreover, the rate at which they change is increasing. The Economist records, looking at league tables of the top 100 corporate brands in 2000 and 2001, that 74 brands appear in both lists. Of these, 41 fell in monetary value in the year, and the combined value of the 74 brands fell by $49 billion, a drop of more than five per cent.144 This is hardly evidence for the popular image of the ever-growing power, and remorseless onward march, of the brands.

Large companies are not increasing their share of overall economic activity

Furthermore, looking at large companies in general, far from becoming ever larger and thus pushing out smaller businesses, in the USA there is clear evidence that they have declined in relative terms as a percentage of the whole economy. From the 1980s to the mid-1990s, The Statistical Abstract of the United States recorded data on the top 500 corporations in the USA, the so-called Fortune 500. Comparing this data with figures for the US economy as a whole, it shows that the Fortune 500 share of total US assets fell from 15.4 per cent in 1980 to 12.3 per cent in 1993. This represents a decline of over 20 per cent.

While in absolute terms, even indexed for inflation, the value of assets these corporations held increased dramatically over this period, it fell as a percentage because the value of assets held by other firms increased even more rapidly. Looking at the numbers of those employed by these firms as a percentage of total US employment, this declined even more rapidly from 16 per cent in 1980 to 11.3 per cent in 1993. Even these declines do not paint the whole picture, since the companies that constitute the top 500 companies has changed substantially over the period.145 This again paints a rather different picture than the popularly conceived perception of the largest corporations gobbling up ever more of the country. It undermines the activists' talk of a creeping corporate take-over of the whole of society by the largest corporations.

A favourite tool employed by anti-corporate activists to dramatise their fears of ever growing corporate power is to compare the size of various companies with the size of the economies of various countries. These comparisons frequently rely on data from the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. In a widely cited report, The Institute for Policy Studies seeks to show that of the world's 100 largest economies, 51 are corporations and of the world's 50 largest economies, 14 are corporations.146

The eminent economic commentator, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, has pointed out, by drawing on the work of two Belgian economists, that these comparisons do not compare like with like. The size of companies is measured by total sales, and the size of economies by GDP. These are measures of two quite different things. GDP is a measure of value added; if one were to measure the size of a countries' economy by total sales one would have a very much larger figure. By measuring the size of companies by value added, ie, the same way the economies of countries are measured, a proper comparison of the size of companies and the size of the economies of countries can be made. By this measure the number of companies among the top 100 economies is reduced to 37, and among the top 50 economies, only two are companies. Anti-corporate activists like to repeat the Institute for Policy Studies' claim that GM, perhaps still better known as General Motors - for many years America's largest company and in 2001 America's, and the world's, third largest company in terms of revenue147 - is bigger than Denmark's economy. Properly measured the economy of Denmark is three times the size of GM, and GM is in fact smaller than the economy of Bangladesh.148 This does not somehow have quite the same resonance.

Small companies are not necessarily driven out by large brands

Related to the notion of the invincible brand, is the idea that brands force smaller companies out of the market. Undoubtedly there has been much consolidation in many markets. However in areas where large corporations are especially strong, niche markets can still develop and there is room for far smaller competitors. In a market that is dominated by large corporations small-scale operations can still prosper, if they serve a particular demand for which the major players do not, or are incapable of, catering.

We are not witnessing a relentless march toward homogenisation without any countervailing influences. For example, in the UK the real ale movement led to a revival in small-scale brewers. This was a reaction to the increased homogenisation of beer. In the UK over 300 new breweries producing real ale are now operating.149 Many of these may be very small scale, but that is the whole point. It shows that small operations can survive, even grow and flourish, in markets with powerful brands. A similar thing has also happened in the UK and USA with the rise of farmhouse cheeses.

A more recent trend in the UK is the rise of Farmers' Markets. In a reaction against the perceived power of supermarkets and large-scale agribusiness, Farmers Markets have been set up in many towns where local farmers can sell their produce directly to consumers. Only goods produced locally may be sold at Farmers' Markets. In 1997 the first UK Farmers' Market was established. In 2001 there were nearly 200.150 Just like McDonald's, the Farmers' Market movement is a US import to the UK. In the USA, where the movement had its origins in the 1970s, there are over 3,000 Farmers' Markets, selling over $1 billion in fresh produce every year.151 Farmers' Market will clearly not replace the large supermarkets, real ale will not replace Budweiser, but, contrary to widespread perception, both can thrive simultaneously.