Chapter 2 Summary: No Logo

This second chapter focuses mainly on the shift from advertising separate from culture to advertising becoming culture. It started with the steady enlargement of the brand logo on all products and the targeting of younger and younger generations, to create brand loyalty. Today the brands have blurred all lines between actual culture and the lifestyle they are advertising. This ranges from, for example, painting an entire street silver to promote a new line of Levi’s jeans to the creating of events where the brand is at the center of attention instead of the actual event. It used to be that rock concerts, for example, were about the singer/band that was performing, and the company sponsoring it was never associated completely with the event. Since this didn’t allow the companies to be as prominent as they wished to be, they began creating events of their own, where the singer/ band remained unknown until the very end. It has even gone so far that people themselves have become fused with the brand they represent; they are basically a brand of their own. The most famous example of this is Michael Jordan, whose career was boosted into Superstardom by Nike. Overall, brands are starting to infiltrate our perceptions of culture.