Part IV: Advertising and Consumer Culture

No Logo

This exercise is a nice capstone to Part IV and is particularly effective at the end of this section.

1. Watch the short video An Introduction to Naomi Klein’s No Logo.

2. Then watch the award-winning short film Logorama from the French animation collective, H5 (warning: video contains strong language).

3. Lead a discussion with the following prompts:

• How has corporate branding taken over America?
• What does the film Logorama say about Americans? (especially given that it’s in English and created by a French studio)
• How do brands exploit the intense loyalty displayed by many millennials? (e.g., the marketing of cool and “perceived quality”)

Pornification of Advertising?

1. Have students do online searches for ads featuring young women, including specific ads that feature women with their midriff bare.

2. Engage in a discussion with students to see if they agree or disagree with Gill’s assertion that the latter types of ads are more sexually empowering of their subjects.

Wal-Mart and the Creation of False Needs

This exercise works very well with the Schor essay.

1. Review the episode summary of South Park: The Heart of Wal-Mart is the Consumer here.

2. Watch the clip from South Park with the class.

3. Lead a discussion with the class on big-box retail’s manufacture of desire, especially around specific events like “regular extreme lowering of prices” and the Black Friday phenomenon in the United States (the day after Thanksgiving) when stores offer deep discounts to very early shoppers.