I’ve just started reading Naomi Klein’s book No Logo. I’m skipping her rhetoric on the horrors of the global economy but enjoying her discussion of the expansion of branding into public discourse and public spaces. Brands have, obviously, become widespread. We have branded communities, branded streets, branded sporting events, and more.
Brands reflect public discourse and influence it. They use public discourse and are used by it. For example, consider the repurposing of corporate billboards for political purposes by the Billboard Liberation Front. An example is below (from Wikimedia Commons):
American Red Cross billboard defaced to criticize the U.S. Government
Not only are brands and anticorporate advocates competing over public branding space, brands are competing with one another over public space. In the Olympic venues, corporate sponsors have defaced existing equipment with tape to conceal the brands of competing companies.
Ignore That Logo Under the Tape! – WSJ.com
…To ensure that only the companies that pay millions of dollars to be official Olympic sponsors enjoy the benefits of exposure in Olympic venues, organizers have covered the trademarks of nonsponsors with thousands of little swatches of tape.
In media centers, dormitories and arena bathrooms, pieces of tape cover logos of fire extinguishers, light switches, thermostats, bedroom night tables, soap dispensers and urinals. The Taiden Industrial translation headsets in a large conference room have had their logos covered, as have the American Standard faucets in the bathrooms nearby, and the ThyssenKrupp escalators down the hall.
Even the sign atop the InterContinental Beijing Beichen hotel, attached to the Main Press Center, has been obscured by an Olympic cloth wrap. InterContinental Hotels Group isn’t an Olympic sponsor….
In a way, it is an evolutionary arms race where brands of all kinds try to occupy various niches. In the process, they redefine the niches and redefine themselves. What might the next evolutionary move be? How about designing a logo that cannot be covered with tape? Say a logo that is the entire package.
In the meantime, I think I’ll start taping over logos in my corner of the world.
(Hat tip: Boing Boing)
