What brand are you?

Brands.
I was having a discussion with Jess the other day about how I dislike
wearing labels. Her point was that it's so overwhelming why rail
against it? And it seems that she's right. What good does it do to
complain? It's everywhere and talking about it isn't going to change
it. But it seems to me we need, at least, to notice it.
Why are people so ready to be walking billboards for the products
they consume? Because it's identity. Design defines. Maybe that's all
that need be said but let's let that statement be a little bit of a revelation. What we consume becomes our projected personality and in a
society that places so much importance on the individual and personal
freedom, personality is everything.
Product becomes imbued with meaning through advertising; we take
on meaning through consumption. Actually that's not entirely correct.
Product takes on meaning and emotion. That's an important
distinction. We are led to associate products with a variety of ideas
and emotional states, all heavily weighted towards the positive or
negative. All consumption is conspicuous.
So what does your consumption say about you?
What's in your tickle trunk that defines you? It doesn't have to have
a label, everyone knows what an iPhone is when you dig it out. Or a
Blackberry, and the fact that the word Blackberry is to be found in
the auto lexicon of this digital device I'm writing on probably has
very little to do with dietary considerations. And if they don't know
it's a Blackberry they probably don't matter anyhow.
Brands are depending on the fact that you'll associate labels with
lifestyle and we sure as hell do. Lifestyle, what is that? Take a wild
guess as to who coined that term. It was a psychologist actually,
Adler, an Austrian but, if you had asked me, I would have been willing
to bet a good deal of money it was someone involved in advertising it
dovetails so well with marketing schemes.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism