Anti-Logos: Sabotaging the Brand through Parody
In the Anti-Logos chapter of “OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture”, Christine Harold analyzes situationist techniques within the contemporary setting of corporate branding and its backlash. The chapter emphasizes the power of “sabotage” and “parody” while also admitting limitations and arguing that campaigns such as Adbusters lack attention to the realities of today’s branding based economy. Furthermore, the example of the Seattle WTO protests showed how images of sabotage politicized public spaces and “transformed these companies and their logos into symbols of voracious globalization run amok” (Harold, pg. 49). An image of the Seattle protests as seen in Photo #1 shows protestors holding up a banner that says “March Against WTO Global Injustice” with an image of an earth with a nail through it. I think it is ironic that a protest against advertising still uses a type of logo to brand themselves. This shows just how much contemporary rhetoric is built on branding and similar forms of visual storytelling.
Photo #1: Source
It is important to note that a cultural shift in the understanding of sabotage and control took place after the era of disciplinary power that Harold uses Deleuze and Foucault to explicate. She discusses their distinctions between sovereign power, disciplinary power, and the control over communication and how the current culture does not respond to these factors in the same way as in a disciplinary society. Today, media savvy sabotagers of corporate branding “embrace the potential rhetorical force of sabotage, they destroy property in a way sensational enough to warrant coverage in the twenty-four-hour news cycle” (Harold, pg. 48). This Sociology blog post further explains these ideas and analyzes what a post-disciplinary society entails. The post explains how beyond institutions, such a post-disciplinary society has power and control exuded in a multitude of different ways, as proven by Harold through examples in contemporary branding as well as sabotaging.
Harold uses the blackspot sneaker and the Breast Cancer Fund's "Obsessed with Breasts” campaigns to describe subvertisements, a satire or parody of corporate advertising. More examples of this type of undercutting can be found here to further show the techniques and language used. This list of subvertisements shows billboards in particular to tackle the problem of pervasive advertisements that are often inescapable and cannot be avoided through simply switching off technology. It is also important to note that Harold identifies the idea of anti-capitalism as the truly the binding piece that brings similar activists and sabotogers together. Photo #2 is a definitive example of a subvertisement in line with the radical viewpoint of activists against capitalism. The Coca-Cola logo is made parody to indicate how the company is a penultimate example of capitalism, forcing the audience to view the soda company in a different light than normal.
Photo #2: Source
Christine Harold, “Anti-Logos: Sabotaging the Brand Through Parody” in OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture (pp. 27-69).