The Marshall Plan involved America pumping money into the European countries decimated by the 2nd world war. The strategy being to halt the spread of socialism and re-establish the local economies. By this time the arms race had become a battle of social popularity rather than military might, an argument over whose ambition or way of life was better. Design was one of the tools which America used to spread capitalism by advertising it as the ‘good life’ and were using consumerism to promote this.
It is hard to think of a modern political issue that is comparable to the time of the Kitchen debate in terms of its influence over design. While consumerism and the idea of the ‘good life’ is still very much alive I believe sustainability has become the biggest change in the branding of design. Global warming, carbon emissions, energy efficiency and even the growing and aging population have become some of the greatest political issues of today as seen by the G20 summit and carbon emission taxation. Sustainability is now a huge influence on consumerism and the branding of design, a selling point for any product or organization now is to be labelled ‘green’.
NZ itself has promoted itself with the “Pure” brand which leverages off the sustainability and clean/green concepts. Every product right down to paint is using the environmental friendliness of their products as a marketing tool, as seen in Resene's line of VOC free Eco paints.
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