David Weinberger's Intranet Buzz:

ONE-QUESTION INTERVIEW

Naomi Klein: The author of No Logo tells us how the Web is enabling the anti-brand movement

By David Weinberger
Editor, Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization

---

Naomi Klein's book, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, is an unabashed piece of partisan writing about how global brands are assaulting human decency. It's full of insight, wit and passion. The last half of the book reports on the worldwide, grassroots movement to stop global brands and the exploitative practices that produce them. We asked Naomi how the Web is affecting the movement.

    The first time I realized the power of the
    Internet was back in 1996 when I did a search on
    the word "Nike" and ended up at the
    "nikesucks.com" page before finding Nike's
    official site. The same thing happened when I
    searched on "Shell" and "McDonald's" and "The
    Gap." It's the kind of thing that doesn't happen
    much these days, with virtually all the search
    engines selling priority to the brands, but in
    that instant, I understood the power of this
    medium: some kid looking for the latest Air
    Jordan models could find himself reading about
    Vietnamese sweatshops entirely inadvertently.

    Even if that kind of extreme democracy only
    lasted a short while, the Internet leveled the
    communication playing field between brands and
    consumers. Outside in the real world, corporate
    messages are more powerful and more forceful
    than anything an individual or a small campaign
    group can hope to muster, but on line,
    individuals and corporations can at times speak
    with equal force.

    I also think that global brands have spawned a
    new kind of brand-based activism uniquely suited
    to the Net: activists and consumers around the
    word are using the common language that global
    branding provides to tell each other the truth
    behind the marketing. Where a previous
    generation of activists followed the money,
    these kids are following the logo, with the help
    of the Net, wherever it leads. That means that
    Gap sweater-folders at the mall know all about
    Gap seamstresses in the maquiladoras; it means
    that a worker trying to unionize his McDonald's
    can communicate with a farmer in France
    protesting "McDonaldization" and with peasants
    in India fighting genetic engineering of foods.
    The brand provides the political infrastructure
    for Internet age activism.

In fact, there's a case to be made that brands are the Anti-Web -- one-way broadcasting that attempts to strangle conversation before it begins by implanting a simple message in the minds of the undifferentiated masses, a message that lacks even a soupçon of truth, insight or humor.

But the real reason we asked Ms. Klein to comment was so that we could announce that JOHO is proud to be the first to offer the full line of Naomi!(tm) brand demonstration-wear, including Naomi!(tm) BillyBounce Headgear(tm), Naomi!(tm) camouflage jackets with convenient CopGrab DragHandles(tm), and Naomi!(tm) the cologne with just a hint of mace. All we need is a jingle and an ad agency and we're on our way!

---

The Author

David Weinberger writes JOHO and is one of the Ringleaders of cluetrain.com, a manifesto of web ethics. He also provides strategic marketing consulting to high-tech companies, writes for several magazines (including Wired) and is a commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered." He was, as VP of Strategic Marketing, one of the shapers of Open Text's intranet strategy. David sits on several conference boards and is a member of AIIM's Emerging Technology Advisory Group. Reach him at self@evident.com.