No Space, No Choice, No Jobs
No Logo
(Naomi Klein/Flamingo/ March 2002/490 pages/$15.00)
국내 미출간 세계 베스트셀러(NBS) 서비스는 (주)네오넷코리아가 해외에서 저작권자와의 저작권 계약을
통해, 영미권, 일본, 중국의 경제·경영 및 정치 서적의 베스트셀러, 스테디셀러의 핵심 내용을 간략하게
정리한 요약(Summary) 정보입니다. 저작권법에 의하여 (주)네오넷코리아의 정식인가 없이 무단전재,
무단복제 및 전송을 할 수 없으며, 모든 출판권과 전송권은 저작권자에게 있음을 알려드립니다.
No Logo
No Space, No Choice, No Jobs
The Big Idea
Naomi Klein documents the history of the brand and the rise of multinational
corporations to such power that they may be considered de facto global governments.
Klein writes based on years of research, documenting the surrender of culture and
education to marketing (No Space), reports on how choice is actually limited through
predatory franchising, mergers, and corporate censorship (No Choice), how labor
market trends are creating many self-employed, McJobs, part-time or temporary
workers, and outsourcing (No Jobs).
“She anticipates a revolt against corporate power by younger people seeking
brand-free space.”
From the Nike sweatshop scandal to the rise of global Goliaths like Starbucks, Shell, or
Microsoft, our century has witnessed how a product is second only to its brand image.
What clouds the images are the sad but true stories behind these giants, and their
business practices. Many are organizing to reclaim brand-free space, to fight for the
rights of those exploited by multinationals, and to find an alternative to the corporate
rule.
NO SPACE
1. New Branded World
“The original notion of the brand was quality, but now brand is a stylistic badge of
courage.”
-The late graphic designer Tibor Kalman
The Birth of the Brand
In the early days, neighborhood shopkeepers bought goods in bulk, and measured out
the amount we needed to take home with us. Products were generic. Brandless. Then
the pre-measured, packaged good came to the grocery store, with friendly familiar
names and faces like Aunt Jemima, and that Quaker Oats guy.
Despite a dip in ad spending during the days of recession, today the brand is back and
the term brand equity has never had so much value. In 1998 Philip Morris purchased
Kraft for $12.6 billion, six times what the company was worth on paper. It was because
the name Kraft meant so much to households everywhere, and the value of a brand
could be translated into tangible, hard, cold cash.
This is the age of brand before product. Where marketing and lifestyle philosophizing
comes first, and the production and quality second.
* Absolut Vodka ads are always cleverly tailored to the readers of particular magazines.
e.g. Absolut Centerfold for Playboy.
* There are companies that have always understood the essence of the brand: Coke,
Disney, McDonald’s and Burger King.
* Starbucks and the Body Shop did not become giants through direct advertising. The
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retail outlet was their medium. Brand extensions, cultural sponsorships, political
controversy, and the consumer experience were the ingredients of their branding
success.
* Advertising is about hawking a product. Branding is about corporate transcendence,
and emotional attachment.
* The concept comes before the commodity.
* The modus operandi of many giant corporations is to use the cheapest possible labor
and production method, then hype up image by creating a corporate mythology so
powerful all it has to do is sign its name to produce all sorts of meanings for a consumer.
* Advertising is now all about positioning, personality, character, and values.
2. The Brand Expands
The mid-eighties saw an increased number of people sporting logos on the outsides of
their shirts. Go to any Nike outlet today, and there is not a single piece of merchandise
being sold with the logo discreetly tucked into the back or inside of the item. From the La
Coste alligator to the Nike Swoosh, the Ralph Lauren Polo horseman, to Calvin Klein,
and the patriotic red, white, and blue Tommy Hilfiger.
Sure, sponsors have been around since the days when the Medicis supported Galileo.
But if we were to trace where big game sponsorship began, that happened at the LA
Olympic games in 1984.
The mid-nineties saw big brand logos sponsoring cultural events and soon, events were
created by the brands themselves, with the act relegated as the backdrop to the brand.
From art exhibits to rock concerts, the brand took over. IEG Sponsorship Report shows
a 700% increase in US corporate sponsorship spending since 1985.
Corporations now upstaged the bands or the artists. The success of MTV as a brand is
shown by our everyday use of the word.
Molson and Miller beer put up a Blind Date Concert Tour in 1996 where the audience
would not know who was going to play until the last minute. This way, the band name
would not have to be mentioned in publicity efforts, but Molson and Miller would take
center stage. The beer became bigger than the band.
Brands today fight across categories for the consumers’ attention. Miller is not just up
against Corona but Microsoft, Coke, and Nike as well.
Nike and the Branding of Sports
How to create a super-brand
* Create sports celebrities. Nike was the first to raise the status of athletes to
otherworldly demigods. Sure, Babe Ruth and Muhammad Ali were great, but still
accessible. Through clever marketing Nike created Michael Jordan the superstar. Nike
is not known as a shoe company, but as a sports company. Its ads show different
professional sportsmen playing sports other than their own specialization. Nike took
Kenyan runners and made them ski in a big event. Sports and Nike is about
transcendence. Michael Jordan became the greatest flying basketball hero with the aid
of quick cutting, suspended animation and other editing tricks.
* Destroy the competition. Nike tried to unseat sports agents by starting an agency of its
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own; not only to represent athletes in contract negotiation, but also to develop integrated
marketing strategies for its clients that would be sure to complement Nike’s own
branding strategy, often by pushing its own ad concepts on other companies.
* Sell pieces of the brand as if it was the Berlin Wall. Kids are now tattooing their bodies
with Nike swooshes. They tell themselves to “Just do it” when faced with challenges.
They use swooshes instead of checkmarks on their homework. Every Nike Town or
Park is a shrine. Inspirational quotes about victory, teamwork, honor, courage and other
sporting lingo are on the floors and walls. The swoosh reigns supreme.
Where are you most likely to find young men in the cities? At the local Nike Park, buying
Nike hats, shirts, caps, shoes, anything to wear at the neighborhood basketball court.
To many, Nike and sports comes first in their lives. Their girlfriends come second. Inner
city youth stab each other over a pair of $120 Nikes, when the actual cost of production
is barely $5.
Magazines, clothes, and more!
Brands have ventured into publishing their own magazines. Benetton’s “Colors”,
Starbucks’ “Joe” and Microsoft’s “Slate” are just a few examples. Puff Daddy (or
P.Diddy) has his own clothing label Sean John, restaurants and a recording company.
Shaquille O’Neal’s managers tried to negotiate for Team Shaq, which would be a whole
group of brands under Shaq’s name, which Nike turned down. It would be against the
principles of Team Nike. Even Michael Jordan put up his own retail concept shop
JORDAN.
3. Alt. Everything
The Youth Market and the Marketing of Cool
There just seems to be no escaping branded space. Even “alternative” lifestyles come
with their own brands. William Burroughs even did a Nike ad. Rave parties sell bottled
water. Extreme sports, which was once the bastion of escape on the city streets during
Sunday afternoons, is now a full-blown marketing arena for promoting sports gear and
its own superstars.
Youth sub-culture is no longer free of commercial space. It all began when companies
focused on the new demographic, recognizing the purchasing power of the teen-ager
and twentysomethings.
“Loose jeans is not a fad. It’s a paradigm shift.”
Tony Blair’s carefully art-directed G-8 summit conference rooms impressed French
President Jacques Chirac. He was marketing Cool Britannia – a young, modern, and
dynamic UK. Tony Blair is a world leader as well as nation stylist, branding his party as
the New Labour. The Brits are cool and the cool vote for Labour.
Cool-Envy
Corporations hire insiders/informants from the cool scene. Thus you have genuine hip
young workers on casual Fridays, coming to work on roller blades or skateboards,
exchanging rave party anecdotes by the water cooler. These change agents are not
suits hidden underneath the hip-hop gear, they are the actual thing. By hiring young
people, companies like to show they are on the edge and open to new ideas.
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“When a thing is current, it creates currency.” –Marshall McLuhan
Cool Market Research
Market research today means hanging out with young people and partying with them,
getting into their closets, their CD collections, and their conversations with each other.
Market research is no longer about focus groups and lab-rat one-way glass observation.
So where do you find Cool?
The cool-hunters first stop: the basketball courts of America’s poorest neighborhoods.
When Run-DMC would voluntarily endorse Adidas with its tribute “My Adidas”, asking
thousands of concertgoers to wave their sneakers in the air, the once-skeptical
executives at Adidas could not reach for their checkbooks fast enough.
What have marketers discovered? Cool in America means black youth, hip-hop,
basketball, rap, shoes, low-slung pants, and a certain attitude. Companies pay kids or
“street crews” to build word-of-mouth on the inner city streets about new products.
Nike hosts inner city sports programs and files it under charity. In other more affluent
areas, putting a big swoosh on the neighborhood basketball court is called advertising.
The ghetto gives Nike all its research material, and Nike “gives back” to the community
by offering development programs, where they further embed their swoosh into the
psyche of the young black urban poor.
Tommy Hilfiger mastered the art of capturing ghetto coolness with a hyper-patriotic,
interracial utopia imagery. The brand went from white preppy wear (or young
Republican clothing) to hip hop by feeding successfully off American race relations.
Hilfiger ads encapsulate the idea of white youth and their fetishization of black style, and
black youth their fetishization of white wealth.
Selling the coolness of camp and kitsch
The commercial irony of camp and kitsch made brands like Diesel truly cool by
employing a bit of self-mockery. MGM hired drag queens to relaunch the film
“Showgirls” after it discovered that twentysomethings were hosting camp Showgirl
screening parties to drink and laugh at the bad screenplay and kitsch elements.
Star Wars re-releases, Andy Warhol, drag queens, Che Guevara (Revolution Soda),
and even Apple computers (used Gandhi in its Think Different campaign) are either
employers or elements of camp culture. Anna Sui (designer) incorporated the Tibetan
people’s struggle into her own products. Anything that’s either too bad or good ends up
as rich material.
Rock and Roll CEOs
From Virgin’s Richard Branson, to Nike’s Phil Knight, and Diesel’s motorcycle-riding
Renzo Rosso, the cool CEO is what sells a brand in one way or another. His or her
image forms part of the lifestyle sales pitch.
Youthful Rebellion as food for culture vultures
Through ad busting, computer hacking, and illegal street parties, young people are
finding ways to reclaim their space from the corporate world. Grunge, hip-hop, punk,
and other fads start out as subversive but inevitably become branded and sold.
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The example of rebellion that didn’t work was the Seattle independent record label
music scene. It could have established a strong anti-corporate force but all that
remained after a few years was Kurt Cobain’s suicide, and Courtney Love’s Hollywood
sell-out.
And who hasn’t seen the great merchandising opportunities exploited through the use of
photos of James Dean, Jimmy Hendrix, and other “rebels”?
4. The Branding of Learning
Ads in schools and universities
It wasn’t long before someone found a way to get to the very heart of cool. Where is the
place most young people spend their day? The cool-hunters began invading campuses,
even casting their own corporate headquarters as private schools. (Nike World
Campus)
Technology as the Culprit
Corporate access to under-funded schools operates through the charitable mask of
providing modern technology. Technology is the factor in the big brand invasion of
universities. A company donates software or hardware to a school knowing full well the
students will graduate into loyal users of their brands.
More scary facts:
* More schools are turning to the private sector to finance their technology
* School cafeterias and sports programs get direct brand funding. (Fast food chains,
athletic gear for the varsity team, computers)
* Sometimes the curriculum will even carry a brand name as a subject or course for a
semester
* Channel One, an in-school TV program, is mandatory viewing for students, it carries
current affairs and of course, tons of ads. Channel changing is prohibited, and the
volume level on the TV sets cannot be lowered. It has a presence in 12,000 US schools,
reaching 8 million students
* ZapMe! Is an in-school Internet browser offered free to American schools Cover
Concepts is a brand of protective jackets for textbooks which is supplied to 30,000 US
schools and features advertisements as covers
* In 1997 40 US elementary schools carried cafeteria menus featuring characters from
the Twentieth Century Fox film, “Anastasia”.
* McDonalds and Burger King kiosks are found in many school lunchrooms
Subway supplies 767 schools with sandwiches. The Subway marketing pitch is it keeps
kids from sneaking out at lunchtime and thus keeps them out of trouble.
* Pizza Hut corners the market with 4,000 schools
* Taco Bell is present in 20,000 schools
* Since fast food is more expensive than state-sponsored cafeteria food, kids from poor
families don’t get to enjoy Big Macs or pizzas for lunch like their wealthier classmates.
School boards give exclusive vending rights to Pepsi Cola in exchange for undisclosed
lump sums.
* Toronto’s 560 public schools have Pepsi vending machines. One school even had a
banner that said “Pepsi. The official soft drink of Cayuga Secondary School”.
* Almost every university in North America has advertising on its campus bicycle racks,
benches, hallways, libraries, and even bathroom stalls.
* Credit card companies and long-distance telephone carriers solicit students during
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orientation week, with flyers and inserts in the orientation week kit.
* Diplomas come with an envelope stuffed with coupons, credit offers, and flyers.
* A common sight in on-campus malls are Starbucks, Barnes & Noble bookstores, and
Pizza Huts.
* High school and university athletic teams have sponsorships from Nike and Adidas.
The standard arrangement with 200 campuses is the right to put Nike swooshes on
everything from team uniforms, to sports gear (bags, caps, etc) to official university
merchandise and apparel, stadium seats, and banners in full view of television cameras
at high-profile games. Coaches receive corporate money for dressing their school
teams in logos. This has prompted the rise of a new form of inter-school competition:
The Nike versus the Adidas team, or the Coke versus Pepsi.
* One of the most despicable uses of classroom time and a clear example of the
warping of education was the Nike “Air to Earth” lesson kit. At the beginning of academic
year 1997-98, elementary school kids sat down to find kits on their desks that said “How
to build a Nike sneaker” complete with swoosh logo and an endorsement by an NBA
star. The kit was supposed to carry an environment-conscious slant to show it was
“educational” and not mere advertising.
The Market Research Explosion On Campus
In the eyes of brand managers, the school lunchroom is a focus group just waiting to be
focused. Taste tests, opinion polls, Internet discussion groups, and even sending kids
home with disposable cameras to document their families, friends, and “favorite places
to hang out” are all part of the market research explosion.
The kids have the corporations work cut out for them:
* Students are assigned to create ad campaigns for competitions
* The restaurant chain White Spot got 9-year old students to design their birthday
concept parties.
* A 19 year-old student was suspended for wearing a Pepsi t-shirt on “Coke Day”. The
Atlanta high school had a competition that day to come up with the best strategy for
distributing coupons to students.
* In 1997 US college sports generated $2.75 billion in merchandising sales, a figure
higher than the merchandising sales from the NBA and National Hockey League.
* Coca-Cola keeps its information on vending rights to campuses confidential for
“competitive purposes”.
U-Branding: The Silencing of Campus Critics and Boycotts
Deals contain non-disparagement clauses that gag campus criticism, stating the right of
the company to terminate contract with the school should their products be disparaged.
This is similar to how publications cannot print articles that are critical of their
advertisers.
These are all examples of how corporate sponsorship deals re-engineer the
fundamental values of public universities including financial transparency and the right
to open debate and peaceful protest on campus.
Other effects are the encroachment of the “mall mentality” with more and more
campuses looking like shopping malls, and more students behaving like consumers.
One professor complained his students treated him (and Shakespeare or Freud) like a
source of entertainment. They would slip in and out of classes with their grand lattes,
totally disengaged from the purity of real learning.
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Loss of integrity in academic research
Research facilities are used by companies for their own R&D from Nike skate design, to
oil extraction techniques for Shell, drug testing for pharmaceuticals, and market studies
for Disney.
University doctors are often barred from going public with their research findings when
say; a generic drug has been proven to be more beneficial than the brand-name drug
sponsoring the school lab.
University administration often sides with the corporate donor whenever a member of its
faculty or research team goes public. Companies maintain the right to block information
in 35% of the cases and 53% of academics surveyed agreed the publication of research
findings “could be delayed”.
Even research chairs are branded like MIT’s “Lego Professorship of Learning Research”
Classroom commercialization is the great threat to academic freedom. Just like national
parks and nature reserves, the classroom and campus should remain brand-free
spaces.
Apparently the commercialization of education was able to quietly creep up on us
because in the 80’s and 90’s, most students were busy campaigning for
gender-sensitivity, representation, and race issues. They were unaware the campuses
where they rallied were being sold from underneath their feet.
5. Patriarchy Gets Funky
The triumph of Identity Marketing
Because students in the late 80’s and early 90’s were too preoccupied with their
demands for greater representations of gays, lesbians, women, Asians, blacks, and
Jews, etc. the marketers were quick to catch on. Thus Diesel’s print ad featuring two
sailors kissing, Malcolm X baseball caps and shirts, an orgy of red AIDS ribbons. It
became clear to advertisers those leading alternative lifestyles were becoming the
dominant buying group in the consumer marketplace.
The struggle for representation overlooked the real struggle of global poverty and Third
World exploitation. College kids were too busy analyzing the pictures on the wall and
didn’t realize the wall had been sold.
Identity marketing:
* Virgin Cola depicted the first gay wedding in their advertisements
* The Body Shop condemned violence against women
* Nike Town put Tiger Woods on the walls with the copy “There are still some courses in
the US where I am not allowed to play because of the color of my skin.”
* Nike ads that read, “I believe high heels are a conspiracy against women.”
* MAC cosmetics hired drag queen RuPaul as its spokesmodel
* Starbucks and The Body Shop never used any direct advertising campaign. Their
retail outlets served as politically correct global “refuge”.
* The Body Shop broke ground proving a multinational chain could be outspoken on
political issues and still make millions in bubble bath and body lotion.
From diversity and multiculturalism to monoculture
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It used to be that American companies would come into other countries riding their
horses (Marlboro) with their blond-blue-eyed Kellogg’s kids. McDonald’s and other
American chains faced harsh criticism and offended local sensibilities in other cultures.
Today, in any city in the world, brands have taken on the landscape, creating a
monoculture. Some have learned to adapt its advertising a little to suit the local
audience, while others stay purely American and force the inhabitants to see the
American way.
The Global Teen:
* Two-thirds of Asia’s population is under the age of 30.
* China’s one-child policy has raised a generation of spoilt “little emperors” who benefit
from the incomes of two parents, four elders (grandparents) and no siblings. They are
the target market that gets companies all excited about China.
* In 1996, a NY-based agency DMB&B revealed in a demographic study of The New
World Teen that 27,600 middle-class 15-18 year-olds in 45 countries all love Coke,
Burger King, and Philips.
* Despite different cultures, middle-class youth all over the world live in a parallel
universe. They all get up every morning and put on their Levi’s and Nikes, grab their
backpacks and personal Sony CD players, and head for school.
* And of course, there is the “public address system of a generation” or MTV
NO CHOICE
6. Brand Bombing
Franchises and the Age of the Superbrand
The real question is not Microsoft’s “Where do you want to go today?” but “How can I
best steer you into the synergized maze of where I want you to go today?”
Everywhere, the old, familiar, quaint cafes, bookstores, art video houses are being
swallowed up by Starbucks, Home Depot, the Gap, Blockbuster and Barnes & Noble.
Protesters are thrown out of malls, security guards tell them although it is a public space,
it is actually private property so leaflet distribution is not allowed.
What brought about the success of Starbucks and Nike Town? The big box Wal-Mart
chains were sucking out the personality of communities, killing smaller businesses and
out of this rose the need for the good old-fashioned town square, for public gathering
places that allowed large meetings and intimate conversations. The reaction to the
Wal-Mart big box was a need for retail that had more human interaction and sensory
stimulation. So from big monsters to small cozy shops where cosmetics equals political
activism (Body Shop) bookstores were designed to look like old world libraries and
people were allowed to linger and connect.
Retail outlets like Body Shop and Starbucks grew without any need for advertising. The
store was a three-dimensional ad in itself.
Clustering
Like lice through a kindergarten, Starbucks’ method was to attack an area by offering
landlords higher rental fees than local coffeehouses, then it would saturate the area until
each Starbucks outlet cannibalized the clientele of another. Afterwards, the company
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would move on to the next territory. Slowly, Starbucks crept from Seattle across the US
and North America, and the Europe, and Asia. You would say it slowly conquered the
world, just like McDonald’s. And it would not come in with just a few stores in a major
city, it would swarm in and claim enough space on every street like an army.
Big spenders like Starbucks outbid independent businesses, and the only small
businesses that can thrive are the specialty type, found in elite neighborhoods. The
working class is subjected to the same chains everywhere they go.
7. Mergers and Synergy
The Creation of Commercial Utopias
Now the job of translating kid culture into teens and adults comes into play. The Disney
theme park was the beginning of the search for commercial utopias. The generation that
grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons is now Saturday night club kids. They
wear earnestly ironic Hello Kitty backpacks and hold South Park screening parties.
Married brands: “Only the biggest will survive”
* Bell Atlantic and Nynex
* Time Warner and Turner broadcasting
* Disney and ABC
* Citicorp and Travelers
* Bertelsman and Random House
* AOL and Netscape
* Viacom and CBS
With the lifting of US anti-trust laws that prohibited the merging of content companies
(film studios or program producers and publishing companies) with distribution agents
(broadcasting networks and movie distributors) the giant mergers have left the
consumer with little choice as he channel surfs and even as she shops downtown.
The blurring of retail and entertainment has never been so evident. Brands no longer
want a casual fling with the consumer, they want to move in and live with the consumer.
The lifestyle package is what has prompted Puff Daddy to provide not just music, but
food, and clothing. Starbucks offers coffee, music, books, and furniture. Discovery
Channel has retail stores, which are part department store, part amusement park, and
part museum.
Branded retail superstores like Nike Towns are all about the experience. Going to Nike
Town seems like a pilgrimage to pay homage to your heroes and the sneaker. The
lighting, music, interiors, and staff are all performing in a play and retail becomes
performance art where the starring role is that of the shopper.
Roots Lodge is an outdoor summer camp that is the very brand essence of Roots
clothing. Two guys who met on a summer camp established the outdoor clothing label.
The Roots logo is on everything from the pillows, towels, cutlery, rugs, sofas, and coffee
table book (about the Roots story, naturally). The lodge is surrounded by the Canadian
wilderness, while the experience is brought home by purchasing items at the Roots
store.
Another form of ironic fakery or privatized public utopias: the Disney holiday cruises and
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tours that take you to the Disney island.
Then there is Celebration, Florida. Disney’s branded residential village with an
appointed homeowner’s association. Ironically, there are no references to Disney at all
within the space. It creates a calm, pre-mall America and is actually the anti-thesis of
everything Disney does but of course it is another grand illusion. The family that
chooses to live here is part of a fake privatized pubic utopia.
8. Corporate Censorship
Barricading the Branded Village
Large retailers now have the power to choose what items will be stocked or pulled from
their shelves. It is no longer about the Church or government banning provocative
material, a giant company can kill freedom of speech and choice. The puritanical
companies are mostly the ones that have origins in the South like Arkansas or Texas.
They state that their companies are family-oriented, and the target consumer is a
married working mom, so risqué material cannot be sold.
* Wal-Mart pulls magazines with provocative covers off their shelves
* Blockbuster video refuses films that don’t fit their description of “family entertainment”
* Nirvana’s cover artwork and Prodigy’s lyrics had to be changed for Wal-Mart
All in the family
Editors and producers are under tremendous pressures: from pushing the magazine
arm of a media conglomerate to publish good reviews about the new film or sitcom
produced by another arm of the conglomerate.
News gatherers of one media arm cannot report on their parent companies, and when
they do, they stand a big risk of losing their jobs.
The China Chill
Global media companies face serious compromise on their freedom to report
independently on issues about China. Because the giant corporations want a piece of
the pie, reporting on China could prevent media companies from gaining the right to air
to its millions of viewers.
“Kundun” (Martin Scorcese’s film on the Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama) was banned in
China and all Disney films could not enter for a period of 2 years.
NO JOBS
9. The discarded factory
“The product is made in the factory, the brand is made in the mind.”
Companies are no longer satisfied with a 100% mark up between production cost and
retail price, they scour the globe for the cheapest labor so the mark up grows to 400%.
Many companies bypass production completely, outsourcing it to the lowest offshore
bidder. They tell their contractors to make it cheap, so there’s plenty of money left over
for branding.
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* Factory closures are announced in North America and Europe each week. 45,000 US
apparel workers lost their jobs in 1997alone
* Orders are placed with a contractor who passes a portion to a network of
homeworkers who complete the job in basements and living rooms. The orders are also
sent out to tax-free Export Processing Zones like Cavite, in the Philippines, Mexico,
Vietnam, Indonesia, the Honduras, Bangladesh, and other Third World countries.
* China has 18 million workers at 124 EPZs; the Philippines EPZs employ 459,000.
Most are made up of teen-age girls who work 12- 16 hour days, and are subjected to
harsh working conditions: in some countries workers are only allowed two 15-minute
toilet breaks during the whole day.
* There is a strict NO UNION, NO STRIKE policy at these EPZs. Ventilation is poor. In
one factory supplying to the Gap and Liz Claiborne, Carmelita Alonzo died from a
combination of pneumonia (from the poor working conditions) and exhaustion.
* In the Honduras, factory managers have been reported to inject amphetamines into
the workers to keep them going on 48-hour marathon shifts.
* The workers in most of the developing countries are offered temporary short-term
contracts, to avoid factory owners paying them any benefits. They live in cramped
dormitories, sometimes, two to a bed.
* A 1998 study of Wal-Mart, Ralph Lauren, Ann Taylor, Esprit, Liz Claiborne, Kmart,
Nike, Adidas, JC Penney, and the Limited showed they paid workers less than US87
cents an hour
* Pregnancy is a no-no in these factories. At some Mexican maquiladoras (factories)
women are required to prove they are menstruating through the humiliating practice of
monthly sanitary pad inspections. Employees are kept on 28-day contracts (the length
of the average menstrual cycle) so in case one gets pregnant, she can easily be
terminated.
* A Sri Lankan factory worker was so terrified of losing her job, she drowned her
newborn baby in the toilet.
* Multinationals technically do not “own” the factories, they merely “order” through their
local subcontractors/suppliers.
* Factories are haphazardly put together on rented property so companies can pull out
quickly and fly to a cheaper location when there is a sign of labor unrest.
10. Threats and Temps
From working for nothing to “free agent nation”
* The companies that contract out production to the EPZs are the same ones who hire
teen-agers and 20-somethings in North America at minimum wage, keeping the jobs
temporary and the labor cheap.
* North America’s interns are a privileged class who can live with their parents longer,
and have trust funds or other forms of family support
* Starbucks calls its employees “part-timers” even if they fulfill the responsibilities of
full-time employees, the technicality is their hours are strictly cut off below the 40-hour
workweek so they are considered part-time.
* Wal-Mart is the single largest private employer in the US. In Europe, it is Manpower
Temporary Services
* A 1997 study shows 83% of American companies outsource their jobs
* Microsoft outsources its divisions, and maintains a small core of highly-paid
permanents, the rest are temps (5,750) and freelancers.
* There is a growing number of freelance copywriters, software designers, marketing
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consultants, headhunters, etc. who are striving to achieve a balance between personal
and work life. They practice yoga or play with their dogs in their wired home offices,
while earning more money jumping from contract to contract than when they were tied
down to one employer and a fixed salary.
11. Breeding Disloyalty
What goes around, comes around.
* Transnationals own 33% of the world’s assets and account for only 5% of the world’s
employment.
* The widening gap between rich and poor has led to the rise of gated communities and
a paranoia from the rich whenever there are riots on America’s streets
* More kids are saving up and being more self-reliant, not counting on future employer
pensions or social security
* There is less room for old-fashioned success stories of the mail-room boy climbing up
the corporate ladder to CEO, especially because the mailroom is most probably
outsourced to Pitney Bowes
* A population of young workers who do not see themselves as corporate lifers may be
leading us to a renaissance in creativity and a new kind of anti-corporate politics
*In the US, Canada, and the UK, people who do not have access to a corporation to
which they can offer lifelong loyalty are the majority.
* From the clerk at the Gap to the Top CEO, jobs are seen as temporary and just
stations to pass through
* At a time when youth style and attitude are the most effective generators of wealth for
the corporate cool-hunters, real live youth are treated like disposable workforces,
getting kicked around, and now many are kicking the corporate butt
NO LOGO
12. Culture jamming
Ads under attack
* New York artist Rodriguez de Gerada works as a sign-installer and window display
artist by day, and when he’s free, he does culture-jamming. (Altering familiar messages
to create a new meaning.) He rips and pastes up billboards to change their meanings
and criticize the brands that own the space.
* A growing number of activists are clamoring to reclaim public space through street
parties, Critical Mass bicycle rallies, and producing their own type of ads with the help of
technology
* Some culture jammers pasted a picture of Charles Manson on the Levi’s billboard with
a tagline “Made by prisoners in China”
* The Teamsters bought a billboard and parodied a Miller campaign: Instead of 2 bottles
of beer in a snowbank, with the tagline “Two Cold”, the ad showed two frozen workers
out in the cold with the copy “Too Cold: Miller canned 88 St. Louis workers.”
* Adbusters magazine and its publisher Media Foundation circulate 35,000 copies of
anti-corporate material, with many jammed ads, and produced uncommercials on the
beauty industry being the cause of eating disorders, overconsumption, some that urged
people to trade in cars for bikes. These TV spots couldn’t be aired, so Media Foundation
brought the stations to court, with the purpose of attracting attention to their cause.
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* Kids are self-publishing their own media, zines, and websites, answering the ads of
brands with their own type of branding, like the interactive game “Feed the supermodel”
on the RiotGrrl website.
* Students at the University of Toronto replaced the Molson and Chrysler ads in their
washrooms with enlarged prints of the work of graphic artist Mauritus Escher.
* At Camden Market in London, kids can buy t-shirts with jammed logos like “Krap”
(Kraft).
* Ecstasy dealers brand their tablets “Happy Meal” or “Big Mac E”
* British political pop band Chumbawamba refused to allow Nike to play one of their
songs at the World Cup because of their stand on the sweatshops
* Political poet Martin Espada turned down the offer to do the Nike Poetry Slam at the
1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, he said, “Ultimately I am rejecting your offer as a
protest against the brutal labor practices of the company. I will not associate myself with
a company that engages in the well-documented exploitation of workers in sweatshops.”
13. Reclaim the streets
* RTS (Reclaim the Streets) is the attempt to reclaim space for one night at a previously
undisclosed location to show society what it might look like in the absence of
commercial control.
* Through email and Web links, there were many RTS parties held in Tel-Aviv, Sydney,
Oxford, Manchester, Helsinki, etc on May 16, 1998 the first global simultaneous street
party was held to coincide with the G-8 summit
14. Bad Mood Rising
The new anti-corporate activism
* Businessmen are dictating foreign policy, turning a blind eye to China’s human rights
record.
* Groups like Corporate Watch and hackers like the Yellow Pages have formed to keep
the corporate giants on their toes
* Poet and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed by a military government in Nigeria
who had enriched themselves on Shell’s oil money.
* May 1999, ABC’s 20/20 showed footage from Saipan of young women locked in
sweatshop factories sewing for the Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, and Polo Ralph Lauren
* There has been a noticeable shift in the West, from seeing workers in the developing
world as “They’re getting our jobs” to “Our corporations are stealing their lives”.
* Established organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have
taken up the cause of exploitative corporate practices
* Consumers are demanding information from companies about their business dealings
15. The Boomerang Brand
Tactics of brand-based companies
“If you are advertising a product, never see the factory where it is made – don’t watch
the people at work – because when you know the truth about anything it is very hard to
write the surface fluff which sells it.”
–Helen Woodward, an influential copywriter in the 1920’s
* Among the former sweatshop workers now turned into public speakers and activists
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themselves, 15 year-old Wendy Diaz appeared before the US Congress to describe
how she and other Honduran minors worked in a factory sewing Kathie Lee Gifford
pants
* National Labor Committee director Charles Kernaghan compared facts for the public
to ponder: Disney CEO’s Michael Eisner’s $181 million stock options would be enough
to take care of the 19,000 Haitian workers who sew for Disney products for 14 years
* Rather than softening its image, Nike’s feminist-themed ads do nothing to hide the fact
that their goods are made by Third World teen-age girls who barely make a living wage.
16. A Tale of 3 Logos
The swoosh, the shell, and the arches
* October 18, 1997. The largest anti-Nike event took place in 85 cities in 13 countries
Culture-jammed taglines of Nike abound: Just don’t do it, Just Don’t, Nike, do it just.
Justice. Do it Nike. Just boycott it, etc.
* Some school boards are turning down Nike sponsorship gifts
* 200 kids from the Bronx dumped their old Nikes in front of Nike Town when they
learned the truth behind the brand
* January 20, 1995 Shell gave in to international pressure and announced it would tow
away its Brent Spar oil platform and dismantle it on land rather than sink it into the
Atlantic Ocean.
* Shell continues to operate in the Niger Delta, polluting the environment as it goes.
* Helen Steel and Dave Morris fought the McLibel suit, the result of a popular leaflet
entitled “What’s wrong with McDonalds?”
Lessons of the Arches, the Swoosh, and the Shell:
* Use the courts as a tool, a public forum to attract interest
* Use the Internet and e-mail to spread information about the transnationals
17. Local foreign policy
Students and communities join the fray
* January 24, 1997 Pepsi succumbs to student pressure to get out of Burma
* Some communities have selective purchasing agreements which state they will not
accept sponsorships from companies known to use sweatshop labor
* Boycott resolutions against companies doing business with Burma, Nigeria, Tibet
( China) are on the rise
18. Beyond the brand
The focus has been on Nike, and the big brands, but what about their competition? Let’s
not forget to look at Adidas, Reebok, Chevron, etc.
19. Consumerism versus Citizenship
It is up to the workers in the developing countries to organize themselves, while the
activists in the West support their cause and drum up publicity in a continuing barrage of
self-publishing, street parties, research-based work, and mall-based protests.
As citizens of a global village, we have the moral duty to be our brothers and sisters
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“keepers”.
* * *
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