Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"For the readers still waiting for a substantive follow-up to Naomi Klein's No Logo, this is the book....Quart is brilliant....[B]y the end, readers should be able to spot certain youth demographics and deconstruct their branded worlds instantaneously and with empathy and anger." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Fascinating, highly readable cultural study." New York Post
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"Quart makes it clear that being wary of advertising should be one of those childhood cautions, along with don't talk to strangers, and that it is our job to instruct our children....[A] cogent wake-up call for both generations." Los Angeles Times
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"This is an extremely important topic for anyone interested in understanding the modern American teenager." Seattle Times
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"[A]n empowering work....There are two key problems with Branded. Quart limits her criticism to largely wealthy, largely white kids. She also doesn't come up with a solution that may not itself create more problems." Boston Globe
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"This book deserves to command wide attention among millions of families." New York Times
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"A fascinating and provocative study." BookPage
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"Addressing the possible upsides of teen-marketing ubiquity would have made for a more interesting book, so why did Quart ignore them? Perhaps she felt a more nuanced approach might dilute Branded's brand as muckraking exposé." The Washington Post
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"Quart's style is smart and sassy...a frightening and important book." Women's Review of Books
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"Quart makes a solid case that marketers have honed their approach to teens." Harvard Business Review
Review
"An excellent book....Branded reveals...the way in which young adolescents are being exploited by advertisers, the media and the companies that create products for this age group. Hopefully it will be a heads up for parents, schools, and government agencies to exercise some moral, if not legal, pressure on these institutions to use some restraint and common sense when marketing to young people." David Elkind, Ph.D., author The Hurried Child and All Grown Up and No Place to Go
Review
"Quart seamlessly weaves within her cultural criticism and warnings an extremely insightful analysis of the transformation of youth social movements." The Nation
Synopsis
An incisive exposé of the underhanded advertising initiatives that target teens and an exploration of the disturbing consequences.
About the Author
Alissa Quart is a graduate of Brown University and the Columbia School of Journalism. She has written for the New York Times, Lingua Franca, Elle, The Nation, and Salon. She lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv
Branding
Chapter 1 Branded 3
Chapter 2 From the Mall to the Fall: The Teen Consultants 17
Chapter 3 Peer-To-Peer Marketing 37
Chapter 4 The Golden Marbles: Inside a Marketing Conference 47
Chapter 5 The Great Tween Marketing Machine 63
Chapter 6 Cinema of the In-Crowd 77
Chapter 7 More Than a (Video) Game 97
Self-Branding
Chapter 8 Body Branding: Cosmetic Surgery 113
Chapter 9 X-Large and X-Small 129
Chapter 10 Logo U 143
Chapter 11 Almost Famous: The Teen Literary Sensations 165
Unbranding
Chapter 12 Unbranded 189
Chapter 13 DIY Kids 203
Chapter 14 Schools for Sale 215
Afterword 225
Index 233