Isbn 978-1841959870 is a book written by a human named Neil Boorman, he (was) ‘or is’ by his own admission a brand snob, the Books title is ‘Bonfire of the Brand’ (branded website is bonfireofthebrands.com *) if your into branding and not isbn numbers**.
Neil Takes the ideas of isbn: 978-0006530404 (you don’t need names do you?) and moves it along to the premise – ‘what can the average moron do’ so it deals with the consumer side opposed to the production side ethics that the second isbn number supplied essentially dealt with.
Neil is apparently a style magazine editor by trade and publically burnt his branded things, and thus a book was born. His illogic over one newspapers is worrying, while a newspaper serves a broad church some loons, others fairly normal its a draw dropper that defies logic****.
The good news is you don’t have to buy the book, your library can get it for you.
Being logical to a point of being illogical, Neil takes the no branding to a place not yet been before but fails to give a comparison on say if making your own toothpaste is more expensive than not buying it pre-made and branded.
That might be straying into accountant territory for a writer but its an important point to be made which the attempt made really fails to achieve.
After the act, the book moves into sudo-’saint sigmound freud’ areas and overlaps a little with the second isbn number, but Bananas rates the book a worthy attempt at writing as is original but it fails on economics grounds (think toothpaste) and also only stating the value of the real retail price is also problematic – does a pair a levis cost £ 60 yes, but not on ebay unless they are pretty famous for some respect – so hes taking the brand owners perceptions here, not what the market in second hand deems its value.
As to me (thats Bananas in the the Falklands)- ok i have a weakness for converse all star boots, and levi jeans (black). our i.t. needs are near brand free in the commercial sense (amd is preferred over intel for Linux)- chipset version numbers matter more than who makes it.
According to some marketing experts on the site – i don’t care for brands and will ‘plop’for microsoft over apple being less exclusive. I spat a banana over the computer screen on reading that, have these marketing experts*** never heard of Linux ? Hey ho. better get that cloth now.
So from an IT point of view he also failed theres more than just Apple and Microsoft – and removing the apple label does not really count. Yes it too is a brand but unlike the ethics of either.
The book is rated 3.5/5 Bananas.
* humour i think – who needs a hotlinked url anyhow. ** used a lot here *** not what i mean. **** he might have a point about the more vocal guardian readership if you read all the book.
