Generation Y has grown up in an age of the brand, bombarded by name products. In Branded, Alissa Quart illuminates the unsettling new reality of marketing to teenagers, as well as the quieter but no less worrisome forms of teen branding: the teen consultants who work for corporations in exchange for product; the girls obsessed with cosmetic surgery who will do anything to look like women on TV; and those teens simply obsessed with admission into a name-brand college. We also meet the pockets of kids attempting to turn the tables on the cocksure corporations that so cynically strive to manipulate them. Chilling, thought-provoking, even darkly amusing, Branded brings one of the most disturbing and least talked about results of contemporary business and culture to the fore-and ensures that we will never look at today's youth the same way again.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
For the readers still waiting for a substantive follow-up to Naomi Klein's No Logo, this is the book. Quart, a former media columnist for the Independent, follows the bread-crumb trail from the Fourth Annual Advertising and Promotion to Kids conference (no joke, unfortunately) to the mechanics of "peer-to-peer marketing," product placement in video games and the ever-escalating parties of the "bar mitzvah showcase." She hones in on teens' delicate self-fashioning and how it's manipulated for profit by adult "teen trendspotters" who insinuate themselves into the lives of "Influencer" teens in order to cop "youth buzz." Quart is brilliant on the world in which teens "obsessed with brand names feel they have a lack that only superbranding will cover over." She gets great quotes in her first-person encounters with her mostly female subjects, giving the book real voice. And Quart's analyses-of teen movies, SAT tutoring (to improve scores and pose college choices as brands), teen SUV ownership and the role of parents-are sharp and funny. Her exploration of how teens internalize and express market logic-through a process of "self-branding" that can include teen boob jobs and kid-produced anorexia Weblogs-is original and striking. The book lacks a broad cultural perspective: most interviewees are white, middle class and female, so it's difficult for Quart to generalize about how American teens and tweens as a whole use money and products to define themselves. Nevertheless, by the end, readers should be able to spot certain youth demographics and deconstruct their branded worlds instantaneously-and with empathy and anger.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Branded is a cogent wake-up call." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Quart is brilliant." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Quart is brilliant." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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More About the Author
I am the author of "Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child," published by Penguin Press in 2006, and "Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers," published by Basic Books in 2003. I also write opinion pieces and book reviews for The New York Times and I've written for The New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly. I have a master's degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Brown University.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Alissa Quart's "Branded" explores how America's youth are increasingly subjected to sophisticated but ultimately predatory forms of corporate marketing and branding. While the social reproduction of labor has been defined by capitalist requirements for many years, Ms. Quart amply demonstrates that the co-optation of today's youth has deepened and intensified. For many, the immersion in consumerism is so all-encompassing that it threatens to corrupt and corrode their mental self-images and possibly inhibit their ability to function as enlightened citizens.
Ms. Quart shows that the marketing tactics used are often invasive and unscrupulous, amounting to a sort of "corporate pedophilia" whose aim is to grow the corporate bottom line at the expense of childhood itself. Indeed, the author explains that whole classes of products (such as sexually-provocative undergarments designed for pre-teen girls) are unapologetically marketed to ever-younger children, thereby accelerating the pace at which children develop, perceive and interact with their surroundings. Ms. Quart blasts the justifications used by marketers to defend such indefensible actions and alerts us to the moral vacuousness that lies at the heart of the corporate agenda.
Ms. Quart argues that our children bear unmistakable psychological, physical and financial scars from this assault. Media-induced anxiety leads boys to steroid abuse and girls to anorexia; social acceptance is garnered by the flaunting of expensive designer clothes and accessories; class status is predicated by admission to brand-name colleges; and so on. The end result is a hyper-competitive, anxious and debt-ridden generation of youths who collectively are getting locked into the cycle of labor and consumption at a significantly earlier age than their predecessors.
It may be true that Ms. Quart's work depends heavilly on observations drawn from the ranks of upper middle-class society, but she has impressively succeeded in describing a phenomenon that has largely eluded others. The reader is impressed by the author's ability to synthesize scholarly research, pop culture, business information, anecdotes and first-person interviews to make her case. In short, this is original and cutting-edge research that should give inquisitive readers much to ponder.
I recommend this book to parents of teenagers (like myself) who want to understand more about the brave new world their children are inhabiting as well as to teenagers who want to critically deconstruct and reclaim their branded selves.
33 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Alissa Quart describes how America's youth have been successfully targeted with methods today's kids can't resist. In fact, sometimes it is the parents who encourage their children to become 'branded'.
The clothes they demand, the makeup they use, even the colleges they want to attend; all must be brand names. The hard sell is everywhere: magazine and TV ads are the most obvious, but the movies and music videos they watch, even the video games they play feature brand name items in glamorous settings. Our children succumb to the need to be like the movie stars and pop singers.
It is not enough to want to wear the same brands as the stars and models, they crave to be look-alikes. Thus, teenagers are demanding cosmetic surgeries as never before. Craving to be super thin, some resort to starving themselves (anorexia). The girls want liposection and bodily enhancements; the boys want to be more muscular and powerful. Dangerous medications and surgeries are comsumed in ever increasing numbers by our young generation.
This eye-opening book tells the story. No child is too young to be a target.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In accessible, often witty prose, Quart shows the corrupting effect that the conscienceless pursuit of profit by corporate marketers has on everything from young girls' body images or young boys'understandings of what it means to be masculine, to the complaisant administrations of public schools. "Seduction of the innocent" is not too strong a term to apply to the corporate behavior that Quart describes; though happily she also focuses on the ways in which many young people have begun to resist being "branded." As an account of the impact of corporatism on daily lives, this book belongs on the shelf next to Naomi Klein's No Logo. It will only not appeal to those who make a living exploiting young people; most others will find it a revelation.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Branded The buying and selling of teenagers
This book stared out as one I had to read for economics but now i enjoy it and it is an easy read.
Published 2 months ago by apalube
Decent book
Had to buy this book for a class, and I ended up really liking it. Being a marketing major I found Alissa's arguments very interesting.
Published 6 months ago by Ally
you really came through on this one!
I realize you could not find your new copy, but sending the highlighted copy saved my assignment, as I needed this for a class. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Donna Mcandrew
Ok Book
I have read a lot of book on media and how it affects kids and how teens are targeted by media etc. This book wasn't my favorite on the subject but it does cover some topics that... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Lisa Braun
Elaborate Analysis of Youth Branding
Branding is all about inculcating meaning into the collective mind. Consumption in industrialized nations has led to dynamic branding activities. Read more
Published 23 months ago by BARTOLOMEO RAFAEL BIALAS
Branded
The book arrived quickly and in good condition. My only complaint is that I paid $3.99 for the book and the invoice included had it priced at under a dollar.
Published on May 4, 2010 by Roslyn Young
nice subject, but could use better writing+editing
The book had interesting subject matter, but to be honest, I think the writing had some problems. It had quite a few oddly constructed, awkward sentences, nd typos. Read more
Published on February 21, 2008 by Mr. T. P.
Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers
The premise of this book seemed very appealing to me. I have always been very opinionated about "Branding" teenagers, and while in high school I refused to wear well known... Read more
Published on July 21, 2006 by Amateur Reviewer
Okay, but lacking...
"Branded" definitely supplies a great deal of information, but Quart seems to fail in synthesizing this information for the reader. Read more
Published on May 24, 2006 by Tim
Brand This!
Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers by Alissa Quart is a quick and fascinating read on the current and constructed intersections between young people, the media and... Read more
Published on July 6, 2005 by HLR
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Coming of age in the 1980s, I was aware of status signs and corporate logos and the distinction between them. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
teen pix, teen writers, teen films, tween market, teen movies, teen market Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Teen People, Tony Hawk, Long Island, Bring It On, Old Navy, Pro Skater, She's All That, The Breakfast Club, Have You Lost Your Marbles, Los Angeles, United States, College Board, Fast Times, Kate Spade, Legally Blonde, Mary Kay, Miracle Mile, Money Pit, Princeton Review, Teen Vogue, World Report, Channel One, Grand Hyatt, Ivy League New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Coming of age in the 1980s, I was aware of status signs and corporate logos and the distinction between them. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
teen pix, teen writers, teen films, tween market, teen movies, teen market Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Teen People, Tony Hawk, Long Island, Bring It On, Old Navy, Pro Skater, She's All That, The Breakfast Club, Have You Lost Your Marbles, Los Angeles, United States, College Board, Fast Times, Kate Spade, Legally Blonde, Mary Kay, Miracle Mile, Money Pit, Princeton Review, Teen Vogue, World Report, Channel One, Grand Hyatt, Ivy League New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 33
books:
See all 33 books this book cites
40
books
cite this book:
See all 40 books citing this book
- New Moon (The Moon Series, Book 6) by Rebecca York on page 94
- Measure for Measure (Signet Classics) by William Shakespeare on page 133
- Cosmetic Surgery: The Cutting Edge of Commercial Medicine in America by Deborah Sullivan on page 118
- The Steroids Game by Charles E. Yesalis on page 130
- Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton on page 84
See all 33 books this book cites
- Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics, and America's Future (Cultural Politics and the Promise of Democracy) by Lawrence Grossberg in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World by Marie C. Wilson on page 120, and Back Matter
- Whatever, Mom: Hip Mama's Guide to Raising a Teenager by Ariel Gore on page 90, and Back Matter
- Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture by Juliet B. Schor on page 108, and Back Matter
- Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture by Juliet B. Schor on page 108, and Back Matter
See all 40 books citing this book
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