Katelyn Wilkinson

Comm 1500
5-Step Critical Process Analysis Paper #2

Module 11 Prompt: The Branded You

1. Description: Take a look around your home or dormitory room and list all
the branded products you’ve purchased, including food, electronics, clothes,
shoes, toiletries, and cleaning products.

This was a very interesting prompt that I was very excited to analyze. I
feel that I am pretty aware of branding, and I admit that I like buying
branded clothing and items, but I also felt that I typically do a pretty good
job about not buying things just because of the brand. I try to buy things that
I like based on the quality only, rather than just because it has a swoosh in it.
I have wasted so much money in the past doing that and not even really
liking the product a lot and not getting much use out of it. Starting with food,
the only brand-named things that my husband and I purchase are soda and
siracha sauce! Moving on to electronics, we both have iPhones, MacBooks
and air pods. Moving on to shoes, we both actually had a lot more than I
thought. My husband has three pairs of Nikes and I have six! My husband
has a few other named brand shoes like Puma and Vans. I on the other hand
have two pairs of Steve Madden’s, one pair of Vince Camuto’s, a pair of
Birkenstocks, and a pair of Yeezey’s. Moving on to toiletries, we buy different
named brand toothpastes which is typically either Crest or Colgate and only
about half of my makeup and face products are name brand, but I haven’t
stuck with any name brand makeup product in a few years. We have no
name brand cleaning products. I saved clothes for last since I knew that was
the category we owned the most name branded things of. Starting with my
husband, he has a few Tommy Hilfiger shirts, some Calvin Klein button ups, a
Canada Goose jacket, Nike hats and socks, and some Under Armour work-out
clothes. I on the other hand have a lot more. I own some Calvin Klein dresses
and jackets, a lot of Nike, a Canada Goose coat, several Ann Taylor blouses
and work slacks, and a Saint Laurent, Dooney and Burke, Kate Spade, and
Fossil bags.

2. Analysis: Now organize your branded items into categories. For example,

how many items of clothing are branded with athletic, university, or designer
logos? What patterns emerge, and what kind of psychographic profile do
these brands suggest about you? (As a reference, use the VALS chart on
page 362).

This activity was hard for me to do for my food items as well as my

cleaning items because of the lack of branded items. However, the
electronics were easy because they are all Apple. As far as my shoes went, I
had a lot of athletic shoes and dress shoes. I had very little casual branded
shoes. In fact, the only ones I have are my Yeezey’s. I mostly had all Nike
athletic shoes and then various brands of heels like Vince Camuto, Calvin
Klein and Steve Madden. It was pretty interesting to see the two different
extremes. As well, I noticed there was a similar trend for my clothing as well.
I have a lot of athletic branded clothes like Nike, Under Armour, Puma, and
many more. Controversially, I have several Calvin Klein dresses, Ann Taylor
blouses and high-profile bags like Saint Laurent, Dooney and Burke, Kate
Spade, Fossil and a Gucci belt. Even after naming all of the brands that I had,
categorizing them was also a big surprise for me. I realized that by working
full time and being so athletic in my high-school days, I most have work
clothes and work-out clothes. I have a surprisingly low amount of casual
clothes and when I think about what I wear on the weekends it is typically
some form of work-out attire. Using the VALS chart, I believe this puts me as
an Experiencer. As an Experiencer, I love physical activity and am up on the
latest fashion trends and sometimes even go against the current
mainstream. This was very interesting to me because this explained all of my
work-out clothing and shoes and also all of my “higher-class” branded work
clothing and shoes.

3. Interpretation: Why did you buy each particular product? Was it

because you thought it was of superior quality? Because it was cheaper?
Because your parents used this product (so it was tried, trusted, and
familiar)? Because it made you feel a certain way about yourself and you
wanted to project this image toward others? Have you ever purchased items
without brands or removed logos once you bought the product? Why?

Looking back at each item and reflecting why I bought them, there are
a couple different conclusions that I have been able to come to. First of all, I
only bought a handful of my brand-named items for full price. I would even
say that 90% of the name-brand items that I own were bought on some sort
of sale or discount. I have a lot of loyalty to Nike since growing up playing
sports I’ve always like the way their clothes and gear fit better, as well as
there is this confident feeling wearing their items gives you. This is mostly
because of the brand they’ve been able to create and establish for
themselves. Also, most of these name-brands are superior quality, or at least
in my experience. The fabric is more durable and more comfortable. This is
another reason. I have bought some items without brands before, but I also
have never removed the logos off f clothes either. In all honesty, I will not
buy an item of clothing with a large logo if I am uncomfortable wearing it.
Usually it does not bother me, but one brand I will not buy because I am
embarrassed to wear it is Sketchers. I think it is because of my association of
the company with being made for kids and not a great brand in general
based on people making fun of it growing up.

4. Evaluation: As you become more conscious of our branded

environment (and your participation in it), what is your assessment of
 U.S. consumer culture? Is there too much conspicuous branding? What
is good and bad about the ubiquity of brand names in our culture? How
does branding relate to the common American ethic of individualism?

These were some really great questions that I appreciated

answering. I think the consumer culture is very driven of two thigs:
brand name, and instantaneous results or fixes. I am absolutely guilty
of both of these as I often look harder for brand-names on sale or
discount, and I am a sucker for a quick-fix. I do have to say that the
U.S. has a culture around brands and that if you wear or advertise
certain brands in your clothing or social media, that you are seen as
being wealthy, good for the environment, or “hip” (for lack of a better
word) depending on the product that you are wearing or advertising. I
do believe that there is far too much conspicuous branding in our
culture as well. Especially from celebrities and people with influence.
The good about the amount of ubiquity in our culture is that people are
starting to realize that you don’t have to be extremely wealthy to buy
certain brand-named things. I believe our culture is starting to realize
that even if you buy a second-hand Louis Vuitton bag, it’s still a Louis
and no one knows you got it second-hand unless you say so. The bad
about the ubiquity of brand names is that it is also starting to become
expected. For example, knowing that you could get a Louis bag even if
it’s second hand makes it crazy that someone doesn’t have one or still
doesn’t have one. I personally think that branding hurts the ability for
individualism within the U.S. Because branding is pushed so heavily, it
influences what we as consumers buy which actually takes away from
our individualism. If we cared less about wearing what a certain brand
says about us if we wear it, I believe we would see a huge difference in
what people bought. For example, I might buy Sketchers even over
Nike and discover a new form of comfort!

5. Engagement: Visit Adbusters (Links to an external site.) and read

about action projects that confront commercialism, including Buy
Nothing Day, Media Carta, TV Turnoff, the Culturejammers Network,
the Blackspot nonbrand sneaker, and Unbrand America. Also visit the
home page for the advocacy organization Commercial Alert (Links to
an external site.) to learn about the most recent commercial incursions
into everyday life and what can be done about them. Or write a letter
to a company about a product or ad that you think is a problem. How
does the company respond? Based on what you know now about
cookies, what do you think you can do to protect your privacy?

I was interested in the Commercial Alert site as I wanted to

research a little more about commercial incursions on a daily basis. I
read an interesting article about how some Instagram celebrities are
not disclosing their paid endorsement ads. This was surprising to me
because I am quite skeptical about a lot of celebrity endorsement ads.
I already knew that most of them get paid for endorsing a certain
product, but I appreciated at least knowing that was the case. It
becomes difficult when they don’t because you may actually start to
believe that they use that product and that is how they maintain their
figure of their youth, for example. This makes you buy the product on a
false promise because you did not get the full truth about that they did
to achieve a certain look or figure and are believing something they
are getting paid to advertise. Also on the site was a brief article about
how Kendall Jenner came out and shared some pictures of herself with
a few blemishes and finally told the world her secret which was
Proactiv. I also found it very interesting that the website even said the
popular and often ineffective acne treatment. Someone like myself
who is in their twenties and still struggles with acne is desperate to
find a cure. When I saw this ad, I immediately thought that there was
no way that she truly used this and that it worked for her. Mostly
because I have used it and it did not work for me! I am skeptical that
this was another unpaid advertisement or is she was being real about
her journey and results. I am interested to see if she was doing or
using something else in conjunction with this as well. Her mother as
well as Kendall claim that they were true results and they may be, but
regardless of what the truth is I am becoming a lot more hyperaware of
these sorts of things.

The last question was a pretty interesting question for me. Based
on what I know about cookies, they are used to essentially gather
browsing data from different websites and pages you visit. Thinking
about this a little further, I have realized that almost every single site I
go to tells me that they are using cookies and I have to agree to let it
use cookies in order to proceed in looking at the website. Cookies
seem to be beneficial and are introduced as a good thing, but this
leads to some very scary advertisements at times, especially when
they are so specific. For example, I was reading the article about
Kendall Jenner and her using Proactiv and it helping with her acne. In
google and other sites that display advertisements, I was not only
getting advertisements for different acne remedies, but also for
Proactive specifically! I am starting to clear or delete my cache and
cookies now because I am not very comfortable with the idea of
companies recording and storing my browsing history. I also find it
amazing how companies and websites try to frame it in a good light
when I certainly do not see it that way.