Brandwashed.

Hi all!

Lately I have been trying to read several books at once—more specifically, three.

First of all, I continue my work in the company where the main focus of my responsibility is marketing. In order to explain clearly and concisely my view of the work tasks, that is of marketing, let me quote our About us brochure:

‘For us marketing is a complete business process. We do not separate marketing tasks from other tasks facing our team. Detailed understanding of special capabilities of technical solutions by partners-manufacturers; a programme of competitive intelligence; the whole standard tool set for communication with a customer—site, specialized literature, seminars, exhibitions, …—this is marketing. All this in the end makes it possible to efficiently solve technical tasks set by our customers.

For one company, marketing is a classic concept of “organizing products’ manufacturing and  sales based on research of market demand in products and services”; for the other—“marketing is a market philosophy, strategy, and tactics of thinking and actions by the market participants; not only manufacturers and intermediaries in commercial activities…”’

I am very interested in my VSP job, and I surely do make a lot of efforts to develop and deepen my professional skills and my knowledge. What is it that can be done for this? The most natural and defining answer is to read. In the company we have an education program, which stimulates our employees to develop themselves. One of the available tools—5% of working time—can be assigned to reading. That’s when I do read.

Second, the coming-out I made a few days ago, that of being a writer—nothing that you might have thought!—once again I do understand that I need to catch up a lot in terms of literary style. A friend of mine has sent me a YouTube channel link (here), where a wonderful girl called Anya publishes book reviews and tells a lot about literature and the process its creation. In one of her reviews, Anya gave a number of recommendations for writers. I found that list to be much to my use—and so I took it as reference. At the moment I am reading Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer. What made me most interested in it was the chapter about creating artistic worlds, since in my Beginning, that I am just about to start writing, the whole world needs to be created from scratch… but so far I haven’t got to that chapter yet. I will surely share my ideas about it.

And third is for myself. I have never read Frank Herbert’s Dune yet. Reading now. Villeneuve’s film is simply amazing. I have watched it at least three times already, not less. The film makes such a strong impression that even when reading the book after having watched it, I am still seeing all the characters through the lens of the film. The book is not getting any less exciting to read though.

Such multithreading surely does slow things down a bit. But at least it gives me no time to get bored.

Today I have finished reading Brandwashed, a book on marketing by Martin Lindstrom. The book is great. It gave me a similar impression to Carnegie’s How to win friends…: it looks like everything is clear from the very beginning, like there is nothing new in the book, but still these recommendations are followed almost by no-one.
As consumers and buyers, we have our conscience constantly manipulated: every day, every hour, and without a slightest hint of embarrassment—this is the main idea of the book.

Below I am giving a number of quotes that I have singled out while reading:

‘One thing, though, is for sure. Whether by engineering cravings, imbuing products with chemically addictive properties, or turning shopping and spending into a game we can’t stop playing, companies and their marketers will only get better and better at manipulating our psyches and our desires to hook us on their brands and products.’

‘In surveying 2,035 children and adults, SIS found that 53 percent of adults and 56 percent of teens used brands they remembered from their childhoods, especially foods, beverages, and health-care and consumer/household goods—if you think companies and their marketers don’t know this and aren’t actively marketing to young children left and right, think again.’

‘Over the years, I’ve noticed another interesting phenomenon. When you show people a stack of photos from a party or an album of pictures just uploaded onto Facebook, the first thing they do is pause and look at the picture of themselves. Not so surprising—we’re a vain species. But what’s the second thing they do? Pause and look at the pictures of people surrounding them. Why? Because once they’ve taken note of how they appear, they need to analyze how they appear compared to others: Do they look as though they belong? Are they making the right impression? Are others looking on at them approvingly? This is telling. It shows that we as human beings never assess ourselves, our behaviors, or our decisions in a vacuum; we assess them in relation to everyone else.’

‘In short, the less confidence or self-esteem they had, the more they seemed to be dependent on brands. (One might even conclude from this that the larger the logo we wear, the less self-esteem we have.) In a way, it makes sense; it’s easier, after all, to fit in with your peer group by buying the same brand of sneakers than it is to transform your personality.’

‘In Asian countries, it’s perfectly normal for a man to own half a dozen expensive Swiss watches or for a woman to carefully put aside a month’s salary for a pair of Prada shoes. In Asia, more so than even in the United States, a person is what he or she wears.’

‘For a long time, both China and the Soviet Union felt like the underdogs of the global economy—many of their residents have felt as though the rest of the world doesn’t yet accept or respect them. So they tend to overcompensate for this national lack of self-esteem by buying brands—the louder, bolder, and more in-your-face expensive the better.’

‘The difference between a royal family and a brand is that a brand is focused on the next six months, while a royal family typically has a marketing plan for the next seventy-five years.’

‘In any case, it turns out that if you fund enough scientific studies—and the owners of POM have not only funded over fifty-five of them, but they’ve also donated over $34 million in research support to scientists and universities all over the world—you can find something redeeming in just about any product under the sun.’

‘The results proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that marketers, advertisers, and big businesses have nothing at all compared to the influence we consumers have on one another.’

The most horrible thing is that, us being a social species, we are greatly influenced by our surroundings, our friends and relatives: by everyone that we trust, in one way or another. The problem is that the recommendations we get from them can be—and often are—very much not impartial. Surely there is no malicious intent. At least mostly. But the people that surround us, everyone that we talk to every day, form their opinions on basically everything while influenced by a number of carefully constructed professional marketing strategies. We simply fail to notice this.

I don’t believe that Brandwashed will be interesting to everyone. I can readily recommend the book to specialists that participate, in one way or another, in the process of building customer relationships (in any kind of sphere), and also to those who would like to approach buying more carefully and thoughtfully, in order to get more control over the things that happen around, over their affinity to this or that brand.

I hope you enjoy your reading!