Chapter summary

Branding for good?

Simon Anholt and Sicco van Gelder

So much talk— and good talk, too—about how first-world corporations need to think more responsibly, protect the environment, respect their customers and suppliers as well as their shareholders and directors.

Isn’t it funny, though, how nobody ever questions the underlying assumption that the big, rich and powerful corporations always have been and always will be from the ‘North’, and their consumers and suppliers from the developing world?

But just suppose that those powerful corporations and brand-owners were distributed around the world a little more evenly. Suppose that some of the global mega-brands were actually produced by and owned by companies in much poorer countries. How different would our concerns be today if the companies whose products were manufactured in the sweatshops of Puerto Rico and China were actually Puerto Rican or Chinese? How would our corporate social responsibility agenda look if Nike were Nigerian or Pepsi Peruvian?

Our chapter looks at some of the consequences of this reversal—which may just be in the process of happening.

Read more in the full book

Next chapter:Anthropology and the Brand