Branding a Brand new Brand

I simply must begin by seconded Ian’s comments. “Get people hooked on a product and provide them with exit barriers so that they can never abandon their product, and watch the bottom line get fatter.” (Ian Nicholson) Also, give them the feeling of experiencing risks of all kinds while what is actually happening is simple a façade for something that is safe and entirely under control. “Brandfests" is disgusting yet horribly accurate in most aspects. These readings just seemed like one façade under another. How literal too, as in our constant conversations about big box architecture and designing spaces like those Disney creates; spaces with a stage, backstage, and wings. Well, this staging is absurd.

We begin by discussing the way that a town becomes a brand. I question, if we have gotten to this point, then what isn’t a brand? I understand that a town is advertising itself as a seafood or produce center, but then isn’t every city going to try to brand itself in a similar way. Does the not happen naturally? What’s next, branding a “brand” with a person? After I asked myself that question I found the new Gatorade Tiger “It’s in him. Is it in you?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WenTKxRxIAk)

It all just seems so fake. Take risks? Are these individuals who attend these brandfests really taking physical risks, in the comfort of their brand new “brand” of Jeep.
It’s never about the brand. It’s about the risk, right? It’s about being a “badass.” It’s about doing something ridiculous and exciting. But after all that “The first principal of perceived risk for the brandfest is that there should be some. The second is that it should not be overwhelming.” (McAlexander 384) So in reality, all these brandfests are about pretending to be taking risks. Ok, so there are also apparent social and financial risks that can happen, but it seems to me that all risks involved are made less risk-like with the help of brand loyalty. The brand is there to reassure. It is there to calm, comfort, and unite! Yet again we find more façades.

McAlexander goes into depth about how certain locations for these brandfests have nothing to do with natural beauty of the place but everything to do with the brand uniting a group of people. To put it plainly, it is rather annoying that a brand must exist to bring people together. But rather than get angry I’ll try to think this through. When making friends, what traits does one look for? Interest in the same music, movies, etc. Essentially one looks for interests in the same products and the same activities.

Is it even possible for us to interact without product involvement? Last week Amelia showed a video of students dancing in a store, trying to have a good time without paying or playing the consumer. And though this act was successful, the store was on the verge of calling security and shutting this all down. So past a few minutes of freedom, is this really free? This is how I feel about branding. You can’t even go see your favorite artist without being slapped in the face by advertising. Just the venue alone exists purely as a means of selling a product while masquerading as a place to bring people together. The Wachovia Center, Izod Center, Campbell’s Field, Coors Field, etc. are all prime examples. Even team names are lost and creativity and regional pride are thrown out the window for branding. The best example I can think of is the New York soccer team which has been renamed “Red Bull New York.” Even though fans typically call them the “Red Bulls”, you can see in the title and on their jersey that they are just the “Red Bull,” exactly like the drink. They are only an Australian produced energy drink. They are no longer a soccer team.

And Ian’s comments about “what social group isn't a granfalloon?” worries me yet again. I often wonder how I can see non-commercialize things still popping up. I often hope for shared identity around something that cannot be bought and sold, because I do agree. When our society is built up on items that can change hands so quickly and easily, why should we expect relationships built on that unsturdy ground to remain strong.

Ultimately, I propose that any individual must be entirely removed from something to not experience the branding of America. That individual must either be removed from it, like the “Allegory of the Cave” or must be oblivious too it. As for those of us, not so fortunate to be oblivious in some way, our only way out, is to work and live in the consumerist society long enough to obtain enough capital to purchase a large farm, live on it, build your home with local materials, blowing your own glass for your windows from nearby sand somehow, drinking water from a stream, feeding on the animals, plants and vegetables on our property and making clothes from the sheep’s wool and cotton that would have to be grown. Oh and to make that work, you made need 20 hands or so, so be sure to have a lot of children. Also, expect to live a shorter life than the rest of society because you can no longer take Tylenol, Advil, Motrin, etc. And after all of that, you can only provide for survival and for your family’s survival, because the minute you sell any of your “products”, you sell out and you have fallen back into the viciousness that is commercialism.

And just for fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oNedC3j0e4&feature=related
Commercialism backfires when Chevy lets anyone create and post a commercial for the new Tahoe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmyi-aGq6ZE
A Target Commercial that is telling the audience “I don’t know why you say good buy” as if strangely criticizing themselves and saying their products are not a good buy, so why shop there. Oh, I know why, because they have catchy jingles and pretty pictures that are disguising them.