This sometimes fascinating, sometimes long-winded book explains about "murkablity". Murkablity = Murky Modern
Marketing.

Walker draws on the such histories as Proctor & Gamble, Timberland, Red Bull, Axe, and Ecko. It gave me a pause because I, like most Americans, consider myself wizened to the ploys of modern marketing. If we are all so immune to marketing ploys how come our collective behavior and buying habits say otherwise?

Some of the points that stuck out of me: how a labeled can of Coca-Cola beat an unlabeled can of Coca-Cola in taste test (the drinks were exactly the same), how Listerine invented the problem of halitosis (of course halitosis existed before but P&G created a market by creating a problem), and a quote by Miuccia Prada: "Buying a $5000 handbag just because it's a status symbol is a sign of weakness."

Walker talks a lot about the "story of a brand". His story meandered around a lot without making me feel like I really went anywhere. It felt more like he took me on a long walk in a small circle. There are really some good points in this book. Just remember to keep your eyes open because the trip can get boring. ( )

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12549004

Although "Buying In" is a non-fiction book, the writing is so good I was completely transported into the settings and situations Rob was describing.

Buying In is a memorable, fascinating journey in "murketing". Several years after reading the book I still ruminate over it.

( )

The secret dialog between what we buy and who we are

We try to find our karass by adopting brands as granfalloons. Walker doesn't use [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s terminology, but I think that's a fair summary of his analysis of how brands work in the era of the 'click'.

The bulk of the book is a very gentle, pleasantly anecdotal series of debunkings. Walker brings up things that are Said about branding, or purchasing, or consumers nowadays, e.g. advertising is harder than it used to be; or, people don't buy based on brands; or, consumers control the market; and provides mostly contrary evidence on the macro- and micro- scales. The macro evidence is generally the increasing profit of big branded concerns, with some studies done on just how effective brands are. The micro evidence is stories of all the consumers and coolhunters and marketers he's interviewed over the course of a decade writing about advertising.

This is not a scholarly or statistical book, but it rises above catchy stories. The prose is slightly bloggy (paragraphs that start with 'So', for instance), but clear. Walker's summary of human, especially late-modern adolescent human, nature is simple but sturdy: we all want to (a) be unique individuals and (b) be part of something bigger than ourselves. And, in consumer society, we mostly do this by choosing which brands to surround ourselves with. No brand can afford to gamble on whether we're choosing it for Unique Rebellion or Belonging, so the most successful ones now try not to say anything explicitly; 'murketing'. Successful brands that convince us we're separate but are successful because they're used as symbols general enough for lots of people to 'belong'. Rap and skate-punk culture are both here, and Hello Kitty, and Walker manages to be sort of affectionately respectful towards all their fans. He's even pleasant about paid and volunteer buzz-marketers, the people who write online reviews and shill things to their friends for no explicit reward (although the agencies that coordinate them get paid a lot).

Walker manages to be respectful on two grounds; first, that our conflicting desires are real problems and our attempts to resolve them therefore worthy of respect, however innately doomed; and second, that almost everything in the market is now about equally good, so it doesn't matter which brand we choose, scorn, or shill. He has a third half-reason, that trying to base consumer behavior on deeper ethical grounds (that covers anything that affects anyone else) doesn't work, since it's weaker than our personal needs and harder to be sure of.

On the other hand, the only 'brand' Walker describes as bringing happiness in the long run is that of Saddleback Church, which arranges small long-lived groups, and expects them to do some good outside the group. There's nothing like a long time in a small group to throw our real individualities into high relief; and doing good in the world really is belonging to a project larger than ourselves. Walker adds that many of our favorite objects are so because they remind us of real relations; or that we make real relations while following, or inventing, brands.

The crafters on Etsy have another story, that they express their art for others to live with beautifully, not in mass-production sweatshops; but that seems as dependent on mass-production of half-finished source materials. Also, as Walker points out, the commonest success story for an online craft seller is to make herself a subsistence pieceworker -- no health insurance and no leisure, and she can't scale up because that changes the story.

I was increasingly anxious as the book went on not just because Young People Today assume there's nothing better than a good brand, but because the whole thing paints a picture of a US economy based entirely on selling altered T-shirts and iPod cases. That doesn't seem sustainable. I'm also suspicious of the assumption that, because all commodities (stoves, etc) are currently very similar in quality, they're as good as they could be for the price. It seems to me that most objects are only as good as they need to be to last until the next expected kitchen makeover; and because we expect to update the 'stories we tell to ourselves about ourselves', that's not very long. We've made advertising constant instead of replacing it, just as constant email access makes work constant without reducing it. ( )