No-Brands-Land

"Marketers genuinely see themselves as revolutionaries, because they're getting positive political ideas out there," Klein says. "I think it's time for them to realize that they are actually advertising products, and that those products have an impact on the real world. They are produced in real-world factories, and sometimes people are getting paid less in those factories because marketers are getting paid more. That's a difficult message to hear, but if people really are concerned about the betterment of society, then they have to think about the broader implications of their industry."

Indeed, acting as if companies deliver "meaning" practically invites consumer disappointment, Klein argues. When advertising promises, say, eternal happiness but delivers only a soft drink, consumers inevitably feel let down. "What I am talking about is the need for more integrity in branding," she says. "I don't think there is anything wrong with logos, with doing whatever is necessary to get your message out. Among some of the people who share my ideas, there's an attitude that the act of selling is somehow dirty. But I think that if you're actually selling what you're claiming to sell, then it's fine. I have a problem when there is a betrayal in the message."

That a discussion about betrayal can even be considered relevant in the context of advertising might seem absurdly melodramatic. But Klein contends that the companies brought the conversation to an emotional level in the first place. "The flip side of relationship marketing is that it makes companies vulnerable," Klein says. "Just as people are becoming more like brands, brands are becoming more like people. Nike is a celebrity, and that's not just because of Michael Jordan. Nike used Michael Jordan to get there, but now it's a celebrity in its own right. That means that when Nike gets caught using sweatshop labor, it's celebrity news. Everybody wants to talk about it."

The Making -- And Unmaking -- of a Brand Slave

Klein's understanding of the complex ways in which consumers interact with brands is, to a large degree, because she is -- and always has been -- a part of the same world that she is critiquing. "I was a brand slave in high school," she says. "I basically just wanted to hang out at the mall. I've always had a very conflicted relationship with consumer culture. It's not hard for me to understand how incredibly seductive and alluring brands and pop culture are." Klein says that she almost titled her book Distracted by Shiny Objects.

"I have a weakness for all things pop culture," Klein admits. "I still watch way too much junk TV. My favorite show is The Daily Show, and I'm a little obsessed with The West Wing. I love action movies. I've got a total weakness for them. But I really don't go to Starbucks. Someone might see me there."

Despite what she describes as her own "shallow" streak, Klein actually comes from a long line of activists. Her grandfather, an animator at Disney, was one of the union organizers of the company's first animators' strike, in 1941. He was subsequently fired and blacklisted. In 1968, her parents moved to Canada, where Klein was born and raised, to protest the Vietnam War.

Klein's mother, Bonnie, is a well-known feminist filmmaker. Yet Klein, the youngest of three children, is a self-proclaimed mall rat who, at 17, got an after-school job at an Esprit clothing store. (For the record, she still buys designer clothes. But now she removes the logos with a stitch remover.)

Klein's political awakening occurred when she entered the University of Toronto, in 1989. As editor of the student newspaper, she became an advocate for a range of liberal causes, including antiracism and feminism. But she was frustrated by what she perceived as the limits of "single-issue politics" and of debates that centered around identity and representation, rather than around economics.

Klein dropped out of college in 1993 and became editor of This Magazine, a leftist monthly, as well as a columnist for the Toronto Star. She found herself writing frequently about advertising -- both about its pervasiveness and about its co-opting of loaded symbols and slogans. But she had not yet found a real focus. "It seemed that all I was doing was complaining," she says. Klein returned to school after two years off and had a startling realization: During her short time away, the political climate on campus had changed considerably. "A new generation of activists was focused on issues of corporate intrusion into their lives," she says. "My friends and I had been paralyzed by the idea that corporations were more powerful than the government and had been intimidated by the idea of globalization. But this generation took globalization for granted. They didn't like a lot of the things that were happening -- they were questioning the commodification of everything and were looking for some unmarketed space -- yet they were really savvy. They had an ease with media that came from starting their own Web sites and from having their own e-zines. Their attitude was, If you don't like something, you can just change the picture; you can scan it and change it to something you like better. That seemed very significant to me. When I had been in university before, I had felt so helpless."