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Originally posted by GJ:
This all makes for a pretty interesting chicken-egg discussion. Do people go and buy specific brands to establish whatever image they stand for or does it go the other way around? People identifying themselves with characters in a novel are tempted to go and buy the same things as these characters?

Some people just like novelty. If I were to go out and buy a WG black Buzz jacket, it wouldn't necissarily be because I identify with Cayce (even tho I do to some extent) it would be like owning some part of the book. And then the novelty itself defines them.

And yes, most people do allow brands to define them. Why do you think people put big Nike "swoosh" stickers on the back window of their truck?

I got a Buzz Rickson because I collect William Gibson stuff. It's a collectable, that's all. If they actually wanted to exploit us fans that actually make it possible to buy the things outside Japan!!

Well, as far as I've read from Spook Country, I couldn't find any excessive merchandising in it. What I found is that WG worked hard in his style, with fast short chapters, several parallel scripts /stories, rotating points of view, complex schemas.

The brands are presented as resources for clarifying aspects of characters, circunstances, etc...

BTW, an interesting history about brands that become something else: in the 80'ies I had a lawyer and he also worked for a major Britsh blade manufacturer. In one meeting he actually asked the managers of that company if the "Gillete" they manufactured was doing well... As you see, in this case Gillete left the single purpose of being a brand and became a generic substantive for shaving blades.

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BTW, an interesting history about brands that become something else: in the 80'ies I had a lawyer and he also worked for a major Britsh blade manufacturer. In one meeting he actually asked the managers of that company if the "Gillete" they manufactured was doing well... As you see, in this case Gillete left the single purpose of being a brand and became a generic substantive for shaving blades.

The same thing happened with Rollerblades. That's a brand name, the actual name of the product is "in-line skates" but because Rollerblade was the first brand name attatched to the product, that's what everyone calls anything with four wheels lined up in a row attatched to the bottom of a pair of boots.