Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity

by Anne Elizabeth Moore

book data

118 ratings, 3.36 average rating, 46 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		11%
4		34%
3		34%
2		14%
1		4%

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published

November 12th 2007 by New Press

binding

Paperback, 208 pages

isbn

1595581685 (isbn13: 9781595581686)

description

A writer and activist investigates corporate America's inroads into—and alliances with—the cultural underground.

"There's an industry around you t...more

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04/28/08

oriana marked it as to-read

bookshelves: to-read

Just read an amazing review from bitch magazine which ended like this:

Parts of Unmarketable may be impenetrable to those unfamiliar with the ways of DIY art and activism, but that's precisely why the book works. Instead of a "don't-always-trust-what-you-see" tome targeted at the masses, Moore talks straight to the artists producing the work, passionately prodding them to think about integrity, ownership, and meaning. In doing so, she's created an authentic work about the co...more

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01/12/08

Kristine rated it:

bookshelves: abandoned

Read in January, 2008

heavy on jargon but never fully and clearly explained. self-congratulatory and offering few alternatives between corporations (bad) and a diy punk underground (utopia). lots of anecdotes and annoying footnotes with useless asides about how the author has donated all of her zines and how she felt about barbie growing up. her "shopdropping" episode at american girls store was written up like it was revolutionary and daring but i would argue that it was inappropriate and lame. i wante...more

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11/13/07

James rated it:

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in January, 2008

The author gave me a few new things to think about but for the most part I think you'll gain more academically from reading the books she cites ( Conquest of Cool for example). What I found the most compelling were her personal accounts of interactions with corporate money/power as an activist and as an artist. These above anything else show how complicated our culture has become in both production and consumption.

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12/05/08

Anna Bond added it

bookshelves: music, nonfic

I can't really rate this book because I have worked with half the corporate shills she discusses. My heart sinks to think upon what deaf ears Moore's argument must be falling - the ideal of integrity seems almost entirely lost in the music industry, and her examples imply that it's the same in the worlds of design, alternative sports, etc. Depressing, but because of what I do, not at all surprising.

A new marketing firm pops up every day. Any suggestion that selling one's creative outp...more

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11/23/08

Lauren rated it:

Read in December, 2008

A *very* interesting book. After reading "Not Buying It, My Year Without Shopping," I was compelled to look into marketing as an important part of our consumer culture. Moore focuses on a particular kind of marketing (that which is viral and often co-opts underground and DIY culture), and I have to admit that by the end, I had become pretty suspicious of everyone and everything around me. She makes a strong case for the idea that at this point, isn't everyone selling something? Mos...more

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07/28/08

Wendy rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Put simply, art is created for the love of the creative act and advertising is created to sell you things you don't need. The two are distinctly different and confusing them is dangerous. I'm paraphrasing, but that's a key message of Unmarketable.

The book goes on to explore the various ways that corporations (Nike, Sony, Lucasfilms, etc.) take a genuine grassroots DIY culture movement and turn it into a marketing vehicle in an attempt to not necessarily to reach the unreachable aud...more Put simply, art is created for the love of the creative act and advertising is created to sell you things you don't need. The two are distinctly different and confusing them is dangerous. I'm paraphrasing, but that's a key message of Unmarketable.

The book goes on to explore the various ways that corporations (Nike, Sony, Lucasfilms, etc.) take a genuine grassroots DIY culture movement and turn it into a marketing vehicle in an attempt to not necessarily to reach the unreachable audience and convert them into customers, but more importantly, use them to create buzz. Word of mouth campaigns are almost FREE and extremely effective and powerful.

Elizabeth Anne Moore uncovers some really interesting (and infuriating!) examples of the new ways that corporations are dealing with the problem of oversaturation. I respect Moore because she collaborates with one of my hero-artists, Steve Lambert (founder the Anti-Advertising Agency) , so when I learned she had a book out, I had to read it.

How far will corporations go to reach new audience and sell more products to make more profit? After reading this book, you'll understand that there is absolutely NO limit. The tactics these companies use are a form of white collar crime. Moore notes, perhaps preaching to the choir, that most people don't even notice (or care?) that we live in a world that has programmed us to be mindless consumers. American culture is saturated with commercial messages to get you to go shopping. It's a topic that both infuriates me and fascinates me. And often times, it alienates me. So reading Unmarketable, for me, was another reminder to always stay aware.

While I enjoyed this book, there are a few little issues. First of all, the tone is a bit too academic and could use more humor or personality to brighten up the bleak subject matter. Moore also does too much forward-referencing (I made that word up). For example, in the early chapters she repeatedly introduces subjects by saying things like, “This had interesting results, as you’ll read more about in Chapter 11.” Is the reader really going to remember references to specific cases that were briefly mentioned in the beginning of the book? Are we supposed to cross reference?

Also, the footnotes! There are so many! And these aren't just the kind of footnotes that reference sources (those I appreciate), but rather interesting side stories that are worthy, but were probably ripped from the main text by an aggressive editor. Most of the footnotes are the personal gems that I feel are lacking from the somewhat straight-forward, factual writing in the chapters, so they are worth reading.

Structure aside, I enjoyed this book a lot and found myself constantly jotting down notes about organizations, artists and articles that I wanted to read in the futures. So, at the very least, consider this a rich, entertaining reference guide.
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07/15/08

Peter rated it:

bookshelves: books-about--stuff-

Read in October, 2008

recommends it for: Those interested in the counter culture or marketing or both

I liked this book, but... OK, I think Moore's heart is in the right place, and there is a lot of stuff in the book that is interesting and thought-provoking (some of the material on "stealth marketing" by companies was fascinating and disturbing, and her ideas about how "word of mouth" advertising campaigns erode the value of conversation is going to keep me chewing for a while), but...

Some background. I ran an independent bookstore for a few years in the 90s, an...more I liked this book, but... OK, I think Moore's heart is in the right place, and there is a lot of stuff in the book that is interesting and thought-provoking (some of the material on "stealth marketing" by companies was fascinating and disturbing, and her ideas about how "word of mouth" advertising campaigns erode the value of conversation is going to keep me chewing for a while), but...

Some background. I ran an independent bookstore for a few years in the 90s, and I carried a lot of independent, underground, fringe, etc books, comics, etc. I took the job because I liked the material, and I expanded the selection in a lot of unexpected ways, following my own taste and the tastes of people I liked and trusted. I am familiar with the weird feelings that selling something you care about cause. And I hosted a lot of in-store events -- readings, bands, art shows, oddball promotions -- pretty much anything I thought would be fun and might get people's attention. I also did it because I liked the art and the music and the readings and stuff, too, but I also did it because it was marketing -- it both advertised my products and built me a better reputation within the particular subcultures I served. I was a businessman first and a fan/participant second, because being the other way around is a sure path to a failed business.

So I am conflicted. I think I acted with integrity. My small store, of course, was on a different commercial level than the huge corporations, but I am not sure that getting a band to play in my store was actually any different than Starbucks getting zine producers to make some zines under a Starbucks' logo. There probably is a line, but, the more I think about it, the harder I find to say where that line would be.

I am also nervous around discussions of "integrity." I don't think that movements can have any integrity -- people can and do, but groups don't; they are just collections of people. Group integrity is just another form of posturing -- defining a largely arbitrary line between us and them. "Integrity," like "purity," is a concept that is important to yourself, but that easily becomes a bludgeon to beat the people around you. It's a concept that is so often used as a weapon that I think it's lost pretty much all its value in serious discourse.

So -- interesting book, worth the read, but...(less)

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05/06/08

Dawn rated it:

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in May, 2008

Advertising is everywhere. It's gone beyond the usual TV ad, billboards, the sides of buses. Now on entire vehicles, digitally inserted into sportscasts, cleverly placed in TV shows and movies. Ads' very ubiquity threatens to make them irrelevant. The old standard, the 30-second TV spot, gets attention only during the Superbowl, if those wringing their hands and wailing about the advent of the DVR are to be believed. In response, ads get put everywhere else, integrated into the modern landscape....more Advertising is everywhere. It's gone beyond the usual TV ad, billboards, the sides of buses. Now on entire vehicles, digitally inserted into sportscasts, cleverly placed in TV shows and movies. Ads' very ubiquity threatens to make them irrelevant. The old standard, the 30-second TV spot, gets attention only during the Superbowl, if those wringing their hands and wailing about the advent of the DVR are to be believed. In response, ads get put everywhere else, integrated into the modern landscape. This phenomenon in itself, however, is dangerous to the marketer. Attention is all in spreading the word about brands and products. But the problem with being part of the landscape that what is familiar will fade into the background. Thus, anyone looking to market anything is forced to find ever more creative and attention-grabbing ways of going about it in order to be successful.

Unmarketable outlines these methods, used alongside the traditional ways. They aim to generate attention without being blatant about it, subtly subverting the target audience's attention. Or not so subtly, in some cases. The book generally decries these new marketing methods as co-opting "underground culture" - whatever that means; author Anne Elizabeth Moore doesn't define it to my satisfaction, possibly in anticipation of some degree of preaching to the choir. Although, given the amount of "Look at us! What are we doing? How did we let ourselves be suckered into becoming corporate shills without even being handsomely compensated?" attitude evident throughout, perhaps preaching to the choir is the point.

Moore's audience, the tribe of punk/DIY/underground artist types, are also anti-establishment and anti-corporate; this makes the co-optation of the culture all the more vital to advertisers and their success all the more shocking. And Moore is certainly shocked at how easily it was achieved, especially having been drawn in herself, and wonders how it is possible to fight against the air of inevitability in selling out. However, the vast majority of the book is devoted to describing the what and how of various successful (either through favorable or unfavorable means) corporate underground marketing strategies, and disappointingly little to how to combat it. Her ultimate suggestion is to hold some things, "our emotion, our relationships, our ability to voice dissent, our integrity" sacred, and "unmarketable." But if that very integrity, as amply demonstrated throughout the book, is so easily, and sometimes without realizing it, sold, how, exactly, is one to hold on to it? How do you keep giving The Man the finger when The Man will pay you to tell him to go to hell? (less)

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03/26/08

Steev rated it:

bookshelves: politics

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: newbies who havent thought much about marketing already.

some of it is old hat to me, the copyright stuff, etc, but it documents some very recent developments in marketing that are extremely disturbing.

If you've already read books like Conquest of Cool, No Logo, Captains of Conciousness, or been reading zines like Stay Free!, this is not going to be a really useful or revelatory book.

Overall, i was a little disappointed because the book doesn't really provide many solutions. there's a chapter at the end called "taking diss...more

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03/18/08

R.John rated it:

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: mercenaries and cultural marxists

The conceit of a capitalist with "integrity" is one of those straw men, like a "noble savage" or "benevolent monarchy" -- it burns so brightly, and quickly, and it illuminates all sorts of ill-begotten treasures of criticism and intellectual bravado. Ultimately, though, the spoils of such a bonfire provides little more than an easily dispelled mound of ash. In short, the critique, while possibly entertaining, rings contextually hollow and structurally unsound.
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01/12/08

Greg rated it:

bookshelves: life-is-shit, politics, punk

Read in January, 2008

This is a strange book. It's mainly an expose of new advances that corporate marketing has used to exploit DIY and underground markets, which is kind of a silly idea since these markets are traditionally not exactly filled with excess money to spend on products. It shows examples from a wide variety of corporations who have used 'anti-marketing', to help strength their own brands. Basically a lot of this book can be summed up in the cliche that there is no bad press, if you can get mentioned,...more This is a strange book. It's mainly an expose of new advances that corporate marketing has used to exploit DIY and underground markets, which is kind of a silly idea since these markets are traditionally not exactly filled with excess money to spend on products. It shows examples from a wide variety of corporations who have used 'anti-marketing', to help strength their own brands. Basically a lot of this book can be summed up in the cliche that there is no bad press, if you can get mentioned, or thought of it's good, no matter if it's in a positive or negative context. So for example when Negativland makes a record sampling a quite popular soft drink manufacturer , even though it is being done in a satirical (or political if that's your way of looking at things like this, which is my personal bent on things like this) it is still working as unpaid advertising for the the good folks who make acidic sugar water. Or when a shoe company appropriates famous imagery from a Minor Threat album cover, even though it sends Ian Mackaye into a fit of self-righteous rage and drawing a backlash from the fans of the seminal anti-corporate band, it's still good advertising. It got people who might normally not have noticed the shoe company to think about it.
That's the basic premise of the book, that advertising these days is using subversive forms to turn the critique of their products back into marketing. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone with any kind of background in the theories of the Situationist International (SI). The SI stated almost forty years ago that the dominant paradigm (the spectacle, the system, the man, the corporate world, whatever you want to think of it as) will ingest even the most radical acts and incorporate them into self. That's the power of the system. 60's radicals? You're being used for all kind of nefarious ends. Punk rock? You're the soundtrack to a whole wide profit margin of the early to mid 90's, and now you sell everything via pre and 'hipster'-ish marketing. Crass? You're now for sale at an especially vapid mall store. The Situationists themselves? You're aesthetic can be found in marketing everywhere now. And now it's happening to the self-righteous holdouts of the 90's DIY community, to the zinesters and comic book artists, and whoever else you want to hold this community as encompassing. And it's not that the system wants these underpaid people's money, but they want to tap into the integrity that's implicitly been attached to them. (If you don't think this is a goal, then look at the number of say hipsters in a large urban population like New York, and really look at them with their awful co-opted and not so ironic fashions, their punk rock studded belts, their shoes that look sort of underground, but are produced by an especially awful company, and when you keep looking you'll notice that on a lot of them there is something wrong, the ripped clothes look too neatly ripped, their are still vestiges of their non-hipster self there even amongst their calculated looks, you realize that even with the permanent tattoos and everything else their is something terribly inauthentic about them. They have attempted to buy and produce their integrity, and what makes so many people hate them so much is that they are trying to buy something that isn't for sale (excuse the mini-rant)).
Like the hipsters and their rampant consumerism, even if it's in 'cool' things the marketing world is attempting to create more spaces for 'cool' purchases, and they don't mind if it's being bought ironically, or sincerly, they are still getting the money. Or in advertising they are still creating an impression, which makes you think of the company in question.
The question of the book comes down to what can we do about this?
Now, this book isn't for everyone. In advertising speak, this book is aimed at someone like myself. Someone who spent a good portion of the 90's worrying about issues like selling-out, and making zines, and going to cheap DIY shows and caring about how to make a transition into adulthood with out giving up on core principles. Most people don't think of things like this normally, and most people wouldn't find what is being talked about in this book as being especially evil. To tell the truth I don't find it very surprising, anyone with any sense of history will realize that eventually the underground is mined for it's integrity. It happened in the early 90's with the onset of grunge, when labels fell over themselves trying to pick up bands, produce 'zine' like advertisements, and set themselves up as an 'alternative' to their own mainstream culture. Now it's moved up a notch, and become more transparent. As this book points out even radical acts like the Rev. Billy picketing a store still brings more attention to the store, crowds gather around, and the brand of the store is more firmly entrenched in the spectator's mind. The same is said of the whole agenda of Adbusters.
The book doesn't answer the question of what can be done about this. And I think it's a shame. The author missed one big component of this whole picture, you have to let yourself know about these things, you have to concern yourself with the products for them to make an imprint on you. You need to connect with the media for the message to hit you, and this is impossible in a certain extent in our world of ad's and billboards, and graffiti being used to push commodities onto us. I actually didn't know about any of these ad campaigns before reading the book. And ironically the book did more to make me aware of these companies that I lately give no thought to, then it did to open my eyes to any theories or ideas that I didn't already know. In this way this book acted as the same unwilling advertising tool that the author is arguing against.
So, as I read this book I thought, in my not caring about these companies, not giving them a thought, not buying their products, not conciously trying to be anything more than the person that I have created by living as closely to my principles for the past 15 years or whatever it's been, I have been missed by these types of marketing, and in a lot of ways by marketing in general (the one wonderful side of having little or no extra money to spend on things, except for books and movies, I'm not perfect, no one probably is). My younger self would hate me for saying this, but one way to personally get around the effects of the marketing world is a certain 'transcendent' apathy. Not just a blind apathy but one based on a defeatist resignation and a turning away from the world that one finds repulsive. Now this doesn't fix anything though, but in my case it worked in that I wasn't affected by any of these ad campaigns because I didn't even know they existed.
The other thing that the author misses is the second part of the basic tenet of the SI. Since even the most radical act will be made part of the spectacle, the goal of the artist (in whatever medium, even living can be an art to the SI) is to constantly change, to keep moving, allow the spectacle to eat up the corpses of the past, while creating ever new and more difficult art that can momentarily open up spaces of resistance. Since the advertising world (to represent the spectacle here), is always changing, and ingesting new ideas, recruiting from the ranks of the underground, the goal if you don't want you're way of life to be co-opted is to keep changing and growing. On a non-personal level this can involve the creation of more radical situations that may even eventually threaten the structure of the system if it tries to ingest it. I have no idea what this kind of situation will be, but to date none of the actions done against the companies in mocking them or re-appropriating their logo's has really done any good, or I should say have continued doing any good. The people who are going to react in the positive revolutionary way to these aims have already done so, and now a magazine like Adbusters, has lived beyond it's usefulness, and become a commodity itself, creating a norm that can be easily digested and consumed. The key is change. Change and rejection.

All names of offending corporations were deliberately omitted. (less)

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07/08/08

John rated it:

It would be a gross and offensive over-simplification to suggest that this is a marketing book. Yes, AEM does a great job of showing how corporate interests -in their rush to find new and fresh ways to reach an ever-more jaded pool of consumers- uses and twists the tools of DIY culture... But in doing so she navigates the notoriously sticky concepts of integrity, originality, and keeping-one's-hands-clean in the realm of cultural creativity.

While folks on the wrong side of this issue...more

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09/19/08

John rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, advertising, marketing

Read in December, 2008

I thought I would like this book, but it was just too much of a "cooler-than-thou" feel to the first two chapters. The author seems to have an issue with modern business and relishes her life in the DIY culture that has attracted the attention of new marketing. It's perfect for those who thought No Logo and Adbusters are too centrist. I couldn't get past her moral dilemma at getting a grant for teaching zine workshops and them worrying that it was supported by Starbucks. That this gran...more

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01/22/08

Veronica rated it:

bookshelves: reviewed

Read in May, 2008

recommended to Veronica by: The author
recommends it for: everyone

My review is up at my blog.

A snippet thou:

If you eschew Target to make your own clothes, buy from your local grocery & prefer Bust to Cosmo, would you take $2,000 from Ford to help spread the word about their new electric car? That's the main premise to Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing and the Erosion of Integrity by Anne Elizabeth Moore, but this is not just a book for the DIY/punk crowds. By giving us case studies on how easily some fairly indy people ...more

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12/21/08

Ceci rated it:

Read in December, 2008

I like to read a lot about consumerism, brandalism, counterculture becoming consumer culture, etc. This book is very well written. Even better is has a political bent without being too heavy handed (like Culture Jam).

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11/29/07

John rated it:

Read in November, 2007

A great idea for a book, but overall, I found this investigation of hip marketing techniques and their destructive effect on the underground quite awkwardly executed and often just plain banal. It has little in the way of valuable insight on the intersection between art, politics, commerce and advertising. It's also full of wild inaccuracies, assumptions and generalizations about the value of the counter-culture in general. Do independent labels have more "integrity" than major corpora...more

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11/14/08

Mary Beth rated it:

Read in December, 2008

This is written by my old buddy Anne, who is a whip, a smarty, a helluva good pie baker, and a very good person. She has some interesting things to say, so I recommend that you read her books/articles/zines. I am reading this one now, and am learning a lot. Thanks Anne!

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04/18/08

MM rated it:

Read in May, 2008

Well let's see, add this one to the likes of Thomas Frank and Naomi Klein's journalism. Moore was co-editor of erstwhile publication, Punk Planet, and she's concerned with how consumer culture messes with artistic expression, and integrity in general. Nothing terribly new here and much of the ideas seem oversimplified, but there are some good stories and interesting case studies. And hey, the chapters are short and it's a quick read -- good for keeping in the bathroom for toilet visits. You mi...more

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06/13/09

Alex rated it:

Read in June, 2009

This book was a good thorough look at consumerism in America and the degradation of integrity. It made me think more about my beliefs and was very interesting to read.

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02/09/09

Lorna rated it:

Read in February, 2009

It is alarming just how much influence Corporate America has on even the underground and even spaces that were thought to be ever-so-sacred. It is a call to "take back" the underground culture as a space that must be resistant to corporate influences.

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"the fact is, our relationships to these corporations are not unambiguous. some memebers of negativland genuinely liked pepsi products. mca grew up loving star wars and didn't mind having his work sent all over the united states to all the "cool, underground magazines" they were marketing to--why would he? sam gould had a spiritual moment in the shower listening to a cd created, according to sophie wong, so that he would talk about tylenol with his independent artist friends--and he did. many of my friends' daughters will be getting american girl dolls and books as gifts well into the foreseeable future. some skateboarders in washington, dc, were asked to create an ad campaign for the east coast summer tour, and they all love minor threat--why not use its famous album cover? how about shilling for converse? i would have been happy to ten years ago. so what's really changed? the answer is that two important things have changed: who is ultimately accountable for veiled corporate campaigns that occasionally strive to obsfucate their sponsorship and who is requesting our participation in such campaigns. behind converse and nike sb is nike, a company that uses shit-poor labor policies and predatory marketing that effectively glosses over their shit-poor labor policies, even to an audience that used to know better. behind team ouch! was an underground-savvy brainreservist on the payroll of big pharma; behind the recent wave of street art in hip urban areas near you was omd worldwide on behalf of sony; behind your cool hand-stenciled vader shirt was lucasfilm; and behind a recent cool crafting event was toyota. no matter how you participated in these events, whether as a contributor, cultural producer, viewer, or even critic, these are the companies that profited from your attention." More quotes...

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Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity

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Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity

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