Sunday, October 2, 2011

Brandwashed

I know I’m in the minority in not wanting to serve as a walking billboard for clothing manufacturers, but Martin Lindstrom’s new book Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy reminded me of how much of a minority I am.  On p. 122, he cites evidence that “just under half of all the teens said that if there was no visible branding, they wouldn’t buy an item of clothing at all.”  If one is not wearing the "right” clothing with a logo to prove it, well, there goes popularity.

His book, by the way, has a wealth of fascinating and unsettling information on how susceptible we are to the techniques of persuasion.