Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are
by Rob Walker

Hardcover, 256pp
Publisher: Random House, Incorporated
Pub. Date: June 2008
ISBN-13: 9781400063918

Barnes & Noble online price: $20.00
Buy at B&N now.

SYNOPSIS

Brands are dead. Advertising no longer works. Weaned on TiVo, the Internet and other emerging technologies, the short-attention-span generation has become immune to marketing. Consumers are "in control." Or so we're told. In Buying In, Rob Walker, New York Times Magazine's "Consumed" columnist, argues that this accepted wisdom misses a much more important and lasting cultural shift.

As technology has created avenues for advertising anywhere and everywhere, people are embracing brands more than ever before — creating brands of their own and participating in marketing campaigns for their favorite brands in unprecedented ways. Increasingly, motivated consumers are pitching in to spread the gospel virally, whether by creating Internet video ads for Converse All Stars or becoming word-of-mouth "agents" touting products to friends and family on behalf of huge corporations. In the process, they — we — have begun to funnel cultural, political, and community activities through connections with brands.

Walker explores this changing cultural landscape — including a practice he calls "murketing," blending the terms murky and marketing — by introducing us to the creative marketers, entrepreneurs, artists and community organizers who have found a way to thrive within it. Using profiles of brands old and new, including Timberland, American Apparel, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Red Bull, iPod and Livestrong, Walker demonstrates the ways in which buyers adopt products, not just as consumer choices, but as conscious expressions of their identities.

Part marketing primer, part work of cultural anthropology, Buying In reveals why now, more than ever, we are what we buy — and vice versa.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rob Walker writes the weekly column "Consumed," a blend of business journalism and cultural anthropology, for New York Times Magazine. Previously, he created and wrote the popular "Ad Report Card" column for Slate, and he has contributed to a wide range of publications, from Fast Company and Fortune to The New Republic and AdBusters. Walker continues to write about the secret dialog between what we buy and who we are at his own Web site, Murketing.com. He lives in Savannah, Ga., with his wife, photographer Ellen Susan.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

"Marked by meticulous research and careful conclusions, this superbly readable book confirms New York Times journalist Walker as an expert on consumerism. ... [A] thoughtful and unhurried investigation into consumerism that pushes the analysis to the maximum. . ." -Publisher's Weekly

"Fascinating. . .A compelling blend of cultural anthropology and business journalism." -Andrea Sachs, Time Magazine

"An often startling tour of new cultural terrain." -Laura Miller, Salon

"Walker, who writes a consumer behavior column for New York Times Magazine, makes a startling claim: Far from being immune to advertising, as many people think, American consumers are increasingly active participants in the marketing process. . .Walker leads readers through a series of lucid case studies to demonstrate that, in many cases, consumers actively participate in infusing a brand with meaning...his major argument is convincing." -Jay Dxit, The Washington Post

"Rob Walker is a gift. He shows that in our shattered, scattered world, powerful brands are existential, insinuating themselves into the human questions 'What am I about?' and 'How do I connect?' His insight that brand influence is becoming both more pervasive and more hidden — that we are not so self-defined as we like to think — should make us disturbed, and vigilant." -Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

"Are we living in an era of YouTube-empowered, brand-rejecting consumers? Rob Walker has the surprising answers, and you won't want to miss this joyride through the front lines of consumer culture. A marketing must-read." -Chip Heath and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick

"Buying In delves into the attitudes of the global consumer in the age of plenty, and, well, we aren't too pretty. Walker carries the reader on a frenetically paced tour of senseless consumption spanning from Viking ranges to custom high-tops." -Robert Blinn, Core77