On Photography by Susan Sontag is a narrative on the evoultuion of photography. She makes the point that a new visual code exist because "photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have the right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing. Finally the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the world in our heads-as an anthology of images". She asserts that this has changed the viewer in three ways. First, modern photography in concert with advances in technology has created an overabundance of pictures or visual material. I agree with this point. I would go so far as to say that the overabundance of visual images is partly responsible for the decline in the use of the written and spoken word to describe events. It seems that everyone is fixated on the visual record that photographs provide instead of the use of verbage.
Another change that she alludes to is the effect of modern photography on our education. She claims that "photographs now provide most of the knowledge people have about the look of the past and the reach of the present". She believes and so do I that photography teaches us about things and parts of the world that our out of our immediate realm. It is my opinion that photography facilitates the gathering of knowledge by crystallizing an image or images. As an avid viewer of "American Experience", a documentary program that airs on PBS, I can say without hesitation that the visual images more times than not capture the context and essence of the subject much more effectively than the written or spoken word.
Her final claim is that photography desenstizes its audience. On this point I also agree. It seems as I gotten older, there is no more "shock value" when I view a photograph. I dare to say that I doubt that I will ever be shocked by a photograph of any kind again. As a child when I saw images of the Nazi concentration camps, I was horrified. Now when I see those images, I can't detect any emotion in myself. Images of any kind whether humorous or horrifying have no effect anymore. Photographs to some extent have taken the emotion out of living. It is almost impossible for a person to see an image that they have not already been exposed to. How boring!

The Branding of Identity and Culture

Whether the product is blue jeans or coffee, american consumers tend to identify with the brands they consume. While rarely there is no significant difference between the quality of products, some brands tend to be more successful than others. This success is due to how the brand is marketed. If an advertisement campaign of a particular product is successful in making the brand a symbol of the present culture and also cause consumers to identify with particular brand, the product or brand will be widely successful.
In No Logo, Naomi Klein relates her experience with Clavin Klein jeans. Calvin Klein hired an actress and model named Brooke Shields as their spokesperson. At the time Brooke Shields was argulably the most well known face in the world. The genius of the advertising campaign lay not in her endorsing the blue jeans but conveying the notion that if one did not where Calvin Klein jeans, they were not in step with the prevailing culture of the day. As many a young girl worldwide identified and wanted to be like Brooke Shields, the blue jeans literally flew off the shelves. The campaign was so successful that the pants were not called blue jeans but Calvins. The branding of culture and identity is not about products, it's about attitude.
As, Richard Branson, the head of Virgin Group, a multi-national corporation says in No Logo, the trick is to "build brands not around products but around reputation." Scott Bedbury, vice president of marketing at Starbuck readily admits that "consumers don't truly believe ther's a huge difference between products, which is why brands must establish emotional ties with their customers through the Starbucks experience." The brands that will flourisjh in the future will be the ones presented not as commodities but as concepts: the brand as experience, as lifestyle.
Marketing is not about products anymore. Marketing and advertising are about the psychological impact a particular brand can have on the consumers lifestyle. Successful products
not only are innovative and dependable, they also make the consumer feel good about purchasing them. They are able to convince the consumer that a particular is a "must have" in todays lifestyle and culture. The consumer must identify with a particular brand not a particular product. Identity and culture are clearly fixtures in the new marketing equation.

No Logo by Naomi Klein is No Bull

No Logo by Naomi Klein is fascinating. She offers insights in to the psyche of the american consumer while also exposing the manipulation tactics and intent of the modern culture marketing machine. The first topic that stood out for me is the theory that american consumers don't buy products anymore, they buy brands. She states that by the end of the 1940's advertising agencies gradually moved away from "individual products and their attributes and toward a psychological/anthrpological examination of what brands mean to the culture and to people's lives. This was seen to be of crucial importance, since corporations may manufacture products, but what consumers buy are brands." The book discusses the strtegy employed by Nike, the largest athletic footwear company in the world. Nike discovered that they could offer athletic shoes at a huge premium if they sold their shoes in conjunction with selling a culture statement. Their strategy has been so successful that a pair of Nike athletic shoes is considered a bargain if thet are priced less than $100.00 a pair. You see Nike just doesn't sell shoes and apparel they also offer the consumer a chance to own a recognizable symbol of status and image in our culture.
The book also speaks about how successful corporations and companies no longer manufacture their products. Once the hallmark of a successful business, manufacuring is now taboo. Successful companies now use third world and chinese labor to make their products. Quality has taken a back seat to cheap production costs. This formula, needless to say, has proved enourmously profitable, and it's success has companies competing in a race toward weightlessness: whoever owns the least, has the fewest employees on the payroll and produces the most powerful images, as opposed to products, wins the race." Using Nike as an example again, their footwear and apparel is manufacured in countries such as Indonesia, where wages average $2.00 a day. They don't pay the production wages or benefits as their predecessors once did, and consequently has smashed the competition.