In Your Face: How American Marketing Excess Fuels Anti-Americanism

They hate us. They really hate us. Millions of people around the world have come to despise the United States. One of the biggest reasons? American "in-your-face" marketing, which treats people everywhere as 24x7 consumers, drives U.S. free market materialism at the expense of local traditions and values, and seeks to "McDonald-ize" the entire globe. In this book, one of the world's leading experts on global marketing steps back to see its true impact. J.K. Johansson looks at American marketing from the perspective of the non-U.S. consumer: as the forward wedge of a cultural attack by an arrogant, wasteful society of overfed, gas-guzzling, Hummer-driving bullies. Along the way, Johansson considers the Bush administration's "repositioning" of America and the post-9/11 collapse of American popularity from the perspective of a professional global marketer. Johansson then offers practical guidance for marketers who wish to succeed in global markets without becoming "ugly Americans."