The book started off entertaining and interesting. The first section was an amazing look at how corporate advertising is weaving itself more and more seamlessly into our lives. It showed the steady progression from when brands first started as a representation of a product to it's current state as a representation of our lives.

It shows how brands are less and less about the product and more and more about the experience. The book documents a whole shift from product-buyers, to experience-buyers. Instead of buying a product for it's abilities, the consumer now buys products for the feelings that are attached to them. (Think of the "outdoorsy" MEC-branded mountain climber, or the "revolutionist" mac buyer).

The shift allows marketers to enter a virtual zone that loosens them from the burden of product scrutiny. Many people now buy with their emotions, not with their heads. This allows multinationals to create a gap between local competition by eliminating the product entirely and using it as a canvas for ideals. This way, if your ideal is better, then nobody can compete with you, even if your product sucks. The downside of this new market era is that the quest of getting the best ideal has turned into an onslaught of cultural invasion.

It was really fun to read because I hate advertising and hate it's constant bombardment.

But then the book takes a dark turn and started to talk about how the products are made. It talks about all the human rights abuses and cruel working conditions.

I actually wasn't prepared for how bad it was. I'll give a few quotes:

If $6 a day is too onerous, investors can apply to the govt. for a waiver on that too. So while some zone workers earn the minimum wage, most--thanks to the waivers--earn less.
A living wage for an assembly-line worker in China would be approximately US 87 cents an hour. In the US and Germany, where multinationals have closed down hundreds of domestic textile factories to move to zone production, garment workers are paid and average of US $10 and $18.50, respectively. Yet even with these massive savings in labor costs, those who manufacture for the most prominent and richest brands in the world are still refusing to pay workers in China the 87 cents that would cover their cost of living, stave off illness and even allow them to send a little money home to their families.
A 1998 study of brand-nane manfacturing in the Chinese special economic zones found that Wal-Mart, Ralph Lauren, Ann Taylor, Espirit, Liz Claiborne, Kmart, Nike, Adidas, J.C. Penny and the Limited were only paying a fraction of that miserable 87 cents--some were paying as little as 13 cents an hour.
Regular shifts last from 7am to 10pm, but on a few nights a week employees must work "late"--until 2am. During peak periods, it is not uncommon to work two 2am shifts in a row, leaving many women only a couple of hours of sleep before they have to start their commute back to the factory.
there are many reports of workers asking to leave early--before 2am--and being told not to return to work the next day.
Everyone works six or seven days a week.
These were just a few of the quotes and tales. There are many disturbing ones I couldn't find, such as:
-Women peeing in plastic bags at their workstations, because their break wasn't long enough for everyone to use the washroom in the 10minutes that was given to them
-Many living spaces are just a shack with painted boundries for everyone, which look like a parking lot
-One factory had a rule: no one was allowed to smile

It really blew me away just how much we are disconnected to our product's manufacture.

The book then goes on to tell about the lack of public opinion and democracy as a result of corporate diversion of regular life in north America, which was really well documented.

Anyways, great book all around. It changed the way I feel when I'm looking at malls and shopping centres.

After I read the snowball, I will be reading a book called factory girls, which is a more recent account of the factory conditions in sweatshops and focuses on China more specifically.