US ‘Brand Identity’ Tarnished
Study says ’show of force’ model marketed by military should have been `we will help you’
WASHINGTON - In the advertising world, “brand identity” is everything. Volvo means safety; iPod means cool. But since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, its “show of force” brand has proved to have limited appeal to Iraqi consumers, according to a recent study commissioned by the U.S. military.
The key to boosting the image and effectiveness of U.S. military operations around the world involves “shaping” both the product and the marketplace, and then establishing a new identity that places what you are selling in a positive light, said clinical psychologist Todd Helmus, the author of Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation, a 211-page study, for which the U.S. Joint Forces Command paid the Rand Corp. $400,000 (U.S.).
Helmus and his co-authors concluded that the “force” brand, which the United States peddled for the first few years of the occupation, was doomed from the start and has lost ground to enemies’ competing brands. While not abandoning the more aggressive elements of warfare, the report suggested, a more attractive brand for the Iraqi people might have been: “We will help you.”
That is what the new Iraq strategy is striving for as it focuses on establishing a protective U.S. troop presence in Baghdad neighborhoods, training Iraq’s security forces, and encouraging the central and local governments to take the lead in making things better.
Many of the study’s conclusions may seem as obvious as they are hard to implement amid combat operations and terrorist attacks, and even Helmus acknowledged that it could be too late for extensive rebranding of the U.S. effort in Iraq. But Duane Schattle, whose urban operations office at the Joint Forces Command ordered the study, said that “cities are the battlegrounds of the future” and what has happened in Baghdad provides lessons for the future.
“This isn’t just about going in and blowing things up,” Schattle said. “This is about working in a very complex environment.”
In an urban insurgency, for example, civilians can help identify enemy infiltrators and otherwise assist U.S. forces. They are less likely to help, the study says, when they become “collateral damage” in U.S. attacks, have their doors broken down or are shot at checkpoints because they do not speak English. Cultural connections - seeking out the local head man when entering a neighborhood, looking someone in the eye when offering a friendly wave - are key.
Helmus recommends expanding military training to include shaping and branding concepts such as cultural awareness, and the study underscores the perils of failing to understand your consumer.
Words can cause cultural confusion, the study said. The Arabic word “jihad,” for example, has religious connotations for Muslims; its repeated use to connote terrorism is insulting and also lends legitimacy to violent acts.
Schattle acknowledged that much of what works for consumer advertising in the U.S. might not translate well in Baghdad. But urban ops, he said, is all about experimenting and adapting to new realities.
“We want to look at new concepts, new business practices, to see if there are things that we can learn.”
Adversaries are doing their own shaping on Iraq’s urban battlefields. While intimidation, coercion and assassination might not make them beloved, such techniques effectively limit public outreach to U.S. forces, the Rand study notes. Enemy forces have also learned that “doing good works is a classic approach to winning friends and influencing people” and frequently provide basic services that the U.S. military is unable to match.
At the same time, Helmus said, U.S. military and civilian authorities must stop thinking of themselves as a “good-idea factory” whose every thought has greater merit than those of their customers. “Procter & Gamble doesn’t even do that.”
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Yes, a kindler, gentler Gestapo.
That’s “kinder”.
“The key to boosting the image and effectiveness of US Military operations around the world involves ’shaping’ both the product and the marketplace, and then establishing a new identity that places what you are selling in a positive light,”.
So “shaping” by blowing shit up and murdering innocent civilians is not effective? Torture didn’t work? Terrorizing families in the middle of the night is not effective in getting our “message” across? Maybe we should fund more studies about this, seems to me it should have worked.
As a 20-year veteran of marketing, communications and investor relations (yes, we’ve established what I am, it’s just a matter of price), this is nonsense. You start with the product and the business. The entire communications effort isn’t going to do a damn bit of good if the product stinks and/or management is composed of idiots. Any marketing effort for such a product/management is just putting lipstick on a pig.
I’m sorry, but his article infuriates me, can you tell? It’s the epitome of how far the arrogance and hubris of our military industrial corporatocracy has come.
Jesus, has it come to this really?
““This isn’t just about going in and blowing things up,” Schattle said. “This is about working in a very complex environment.”
So the plan is to effectively learn how to kill em and have em like it.
“They are less likely to help, the study says, when they become “collateral damage” in U.S. attacks, have their doors broken down or are shot at checkpoints because they do not speak English”
Yeah, English speaking people are much more inclined to be helpful after they become collateral damage, are shot, or had their doors kicked in.
“Enemy forces have also learned that “doing good works is a classic approach to winning friends and influencing people”
Maybe right wing conservative christian neocon dictatorial militarist profiteers can learn something from enemy forces?
Just one thing I’d point out from my years and years of study…Dead people don’t really make the best customers. Nor do their families identify with the “brand” of their killers very favorably.
On a positive note, perhaps this is a key talking point to bring up with your greedy, shortsighted friends and family who still support the wrongwing conservatives. They must be clinging to the financial aspects of lower taxes reportedly offered by rebugs. So, by association, would possibly identify with the fact that Dick and Dubya are making their products more difficult to peddle worldwide.
What scares me the most about an article like this is that someone (Tod Helmus a clinical psychologist). Believes that there is a better way to market war. People like Helmus believe that war is necessary and inevitable, there lies the problem.
Our military did a good job of marketing the war in Iraq to the American people. One of my favorite marketing spins is the use of “collateral damage” instead of “civilian casualties”.
Marketing of war is insanity.
vinlander’s observations were confirmed when Karen Hughes (one of Bush’s lap dogs from Texas) squandered lots of taxpayer dollars on a big PR campaign to get the Arabs to like the US. It was beyond a total failure.
And the American taxpayers paid $400,000 for this crap about how to sell blowing things up?
Is something wrong with this picture, or do I need to clean my glasses?
Right on, Vinlander.
You can package dogshit any way you like, advertise it any way you want, promote it with the best language, graphics and imagery money can buy–and nobody will buy it because it’s STILL dogshit.
Or “lipstick on a pig”, as you say, but that would take a HELL of a lot of lipstick for all the pigs in this cabal…
Duane Schattle, … said that “cities are the battlegrounds of the future” and what has happened in Baghdad provides lessons for the future.- Does this say it all or what!
Hey, we have a colonial plan for you! You’re really going to like this! First we send in our military to make sure everyone is in agreement.
I love it:- Lipstick on a Pig
Wow…. a kinder, gentler war crime?
It’s the act stupid, and not the message. This “messaging bullshit” works great for Americans. But for the rest of the world, they have not divorced reality, like we Americans have.
Remember how many times the Bush regime has initiated a PR campaign in the Middle East about its image? And the result????
Greeted a liberators,flowers and candy was the illusion years ago. Judging from some of the vids ive seen on youtube and livewire we are the terrer wrists. Handing kids grenades instead of candy quickly comes to mind. Or one of the female gitmo detainees who hanged herself because she was repeatedly raped. Sick fvks from top to bottom………
211-page study, for which the U.S. Joint Forces Command paid the Rand Corp. $400,000 (U.S.).
yep…-military-academic-industrial-complex.-
http://www.alternet.org/story/18570/
Helmus_(PSYOP-4-Hire),
“more attractive brand for the Iraqi people might have been: “We will help you.”
Uh-Oh!_”DEATH-FROM-ABOVE”isn’t_working?
Maybe_stop_treating_humans_like_consumers/customers.
Market/product=agenda.Always_selling_something.
d’oh!
American?Democracy:
people=consumer
vinlander,
You obviously didn’t live through the pet rock and soap-on-a-rope days.
You know, from now on, when someone identifies him or herself as an expert, I’m going to give their words less weight. It’s time we start working out the solutions through our own intuition instead of listening to “experts.”
America is a brand! That people believe the lies about freedom for all and justice is due to marketing genius, not because of any self-evident truths.
You _can_ put lipstick on a pig and sell it. We have the proof!
Volvo means safety; iPod means cool. By the same token McDonals’s and Starbucks means US. May be not in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So it’s finally out in the open:
War as a consumer product.
It sounds as though the power brokers on Wall Street, like the Executive Branch, never gave a thought to ANY of their “shaping” techniques prior to the invasion.
While the rest of the world watches our Constitution being shreded and our Middle Class vanishing, do you really think they want to have anything to do with the “US Brand” of anything?
If you like this form of advertising, you’ll love capitalism and imperialism!