“In Your Face – How American Marketing Excess Fuels Anti-Americanism”

By Johny K. Johansson, Penguin Books

The title of Johansson’s book will immediately attract or repel potential readers, and if you’re in the latter group, think again.  ‘In Your Face’ isn’t just another politicised edition from the left-wing genre now epitomised by the likes of Naomi Klein (No Logo); Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) or Michael Moore.

Instead, In Your Face has been written by Georgetown University’s distinguished Professor of International Business and Marketing, Johny K. Johansson.  By his own admission, Johansson spent many years promoting globalisation to his students, supporting the development and exporting of global brands and using the likes of Nike as case studies worth emulating.

Until one day he received some DM which epitomised crass American in-your-face marketing to an alarming degree, which was followed closely by the anti-WTO protests that went far beyond student or green politics; and then he noted how polling showed America to be losing considerable favour in the international environment.  Perhaps all he had been preaching was actually tainted? 

And so Johansson’s discussion is the most balanced and thoughtful book within this genre I have read for a long time, and this view is echoed by his contemporaries’ plaudits which are so numerous as to almost warrant their own chapter.  In discussing such issues as the links between anti-globalisation and marketing, and even the very purpose and mechanics of international marketing, Johansson asks some important, yet seldom raised questions – why is the anti-globalisation movement so focussed on American brands?  Why not protest Sony, Ikea, Adidas and the Body Shop? Are non-American brands that much better or is it something to do with how they are marketed?  And what can be learnt from this in order to develop ‘good global marketing’?

In this book, Johansson seeks to answer the questions in order to increase his own understanding, rather than preaching from a pulpit, and this is what makes the book a goldmine – a critical, conversational yet thoughtful discussion from an expert who doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve.

Jonathan Dodd