We are what we buy

Red Bull, on the other hand, set out to woo this sort of "collaboration" from the very beginning, and thus "became perhaps the quintessential example of how brands become established in the early 21st century." The energy drink (then a relatively new product category) was launched in the U.S. nearly 10 years ago, with "no announcement or even explanation as to what this new stuff was and who was supposed to drink it and why; there was no Big Bang." Instead, the manufacturer sprung for a variety of small events: break-dancing contests, extreme-sports tournaments, computer-gaming competitions, an electronic music workshop and free-sample distribution at gyms and nightclubs. Sponsoring so many of these efforts required what Walker refers to as "real money," yet any given function never came across as glitzy or corporate. "The perception that these events don't cost much to produce is good for us," a Red Bull executive told Walker. "We don't want to be seen as having lots of money to spend." Walker attended a kite-boarding exhibition in Miami (enthusiasts of this new, wind-boarding-like sport were aiming to ride from Key West to Cuba) and found that it looked (very intentionally) like a nonevent: no press releases, no onlookers, no news crews, no free samples. (A videotaped press release about the stunt did get picked up on by 40 local TV stations after the fact.)

Walker calls such tactics "murketing." In contrast to established advertising practices, which strive to communicate one, unified "Big Idea" with as much fanfare as possible, Red Bull's campaign seemed a collection "oddly unfocused and inconsistent" efforts that "never sent a clear message to the masses." And that turns out to be a very clever thing, since Walker has identified "projectability" as the key trait of successful new brands. Instead of telling consumers what the product is all about, the marketers invite many separate slivers of the public to define it for themselves, much as the hip-hop crowd did with Timberland boots. Red Bull "is" an extreme-sports beverage, a bar mixer, a midday pick-me-up, a workout booster, depending on whom you ask. "At worst," Walker observes, "each group simply thinks Red Bull is something for them, partly because they have never been told otherwise."

Younger consumers -- those often referred to as Generation Y and characterized by Walker as "the least rebellious generation since the youth concept was invented" -- have actually embraced the language of brands, so much so that some of them have begun inventing their own. "Streetwear," attitudinous apparel and accessories vaguely descended from the skateboarding culture of 1970s Southern California, is their preferred medium. One of Walker's subjects is a "professional Cool Guy" occasionally consulted on youth culture by corporations and determined to "turn my lifestyle into a business." He concocted a brand called aNYthing ("the only brand that matters"), whose accouterments included T-shirts and caps.

Walker regards such projects as a logical progression from youth cultures past; style has always been an important way of signaling both "individuality" and membership in a particular group. True, skater culture revolved around skateboarding and punk culture around music, but each eventually reached the point where Ramones T-shirts outsold Ramones albums and the demand for skaterly "soft goods" dwarfed the demand for skateboards and helmets. Why not just skip the preliminaries and jump straight to the stuff? "In this instance," Walker writes of the new streetwear product lines, "the symbols, products, and brands aren't an adjunct to the subculture -- they are the subculture."

If this strikes you as absurd, even contemptible, you're surely not alone. Even Walker, who generally gives these kids the benefit of the doubt, finds himself wondering of one "lifestyle" brand, "what, exactly, did the culture or lifestyle actually consist of -- aside from buying products that represent it?" Nevertheless the purveyors see themselves as "rebellious"; they're just communicating their defiance using "the grammar and syntax of commercial persuasion." And, Walker concedes, this is the language that "everyone has, for better or worse, learned to speak." Another young brand-maker he interviewed, the founder of an outfit called Barking Irons, which sells products vaguely connected to the "forgotten" history of New York City, considers his enterprise "a revolution against branding" -- by which he means not the rejection of commercial expression but "the elevation of commercial expression." Instead of big-time corporate logos with nothing to say, he offers boutique designs with a message.

This only makes sense if you argue, as Walker does, that commodities can have real significance. Some objects -- trophies, wedding rings, souvenirs from trips -- patently do stand for important aspects of our lives. (They have what Walker calls "authentic" meaning.) Most people, however, don't want to admit that they believe meaning can also be bought, that Converse sneakers make you a cool outsider or that a MacBook demonstrates one's creativity and unconventionality. Walker thinks we should acknowledge that the things we buy do carry meaning, as long as we also recognize that we're the ones who gave it to them. A wedding ring, for example, only represents the relationship between two people because those two people (along with the society around them) agree that it does. We are the ones who invest these objects with symbolic power, and, furthermore, to do so is a universal human activity. Kidding ourselves that we relate to the objects and products in our lives in a purely rational way (something scientists have disproved over and over again) leaves us open to unconscious manipulation by advertisers.

Next page: The siren song of marketing