7 - Politics

Summary

Trailer II

Thus far, we have focused on how brands transform management and organizations. Our pitch was that a brand perspective would offer a new conceptual map for thinking about key organizational phenomena, including identity and change, internal and external engagement, and innovation. We're also inclined to believe that such a new map might serve well as a springboard for organizational action.

In this third and final part of the book, we shift the focus from management, organization and production to something that has become second nature to us: consuming. In a nutshell, we'll argue that brands have brought about a new way of living life: the ubiquitous, pervasive yet little analysed notion of lifestyle encapsulates brands' power to quite literally stylize life. Brands, we shall see, provide the raw material that we use to build our individual lifestyles.

The troika of politics, ethics and aesthetics offers itself as a promising analytical framework within which to dissect the notion of lifestyle. Since we will at least partly fly above the clouds, we'll need reliable conceptual instruments to guide our flight. The concept of politics (Chapter 7) directs our attention towards a (short) genealogy of lifestyle, and analyses its power effects. Chapter 8 raises the issue of the ethicality of brands, and investigates whether brands are part of the problem, or the solution, for living a good life.