Brand U.S.A.


September 6, 2002


BOB GARFIELD: The bombing campaign in Afghanistan had barely ended when advertising executive Charlotte Beers was hired by the Bush administration to head the second phase of the war on terrorism. The so-called battle for hearts and minds has so far yielded Radio Sawa -- a station that broadcasts a mixture of Arabic pop and Britney Spears with a smattering of American style news. We've also seen appearances on the pan-Arab cable channel Al Jazeera of top administration officials, and even a personal plea for peace from Mohammed Ali. But there are some in the marketing business who believe the current campaign is strategically flawed. Marketing consultants Sam Hill and Steve Silver co-authored an article in the current Journal of Business Strategy titled Selling Brand America. Sam Hill joins us now. Sam, welcome to the show.

SAM HILL: Thanks Bob.

BOB GARFIELD: In your article you say in terms of target audience we should ignore the Al Qaeda terrorists -- they're too radicalized -- and forget the wealthy elites who are doing just fine with the status quo, but we should be focusing, you say, on the more than half of the Muslim population who look at U.S. economic opportunity and democracy with some measure of envy. All right. How?

SAM HILL: Well I think tactically some of the things we've started to do are good ideas -- things like the radio station and, and broadcasting more TV and sending out videotape of Mohammed Ali and all of these things are good ideas to get at those people. But I think we also have to divorce ourselves from things that are at odds with our value proposition. I'm sorry -- I know that sounded "jargon-y," but it is very hard for us to advertise about freedom and equality for women and support things like the Saudi government! That's a real note of dissonance. And one thing that we've always said in marketing and I'm sure you've, you've written it is: everything communicates. So we can't run ads talking about how terrific things would be and at the same time send a very different message through a different set of channels. We have to communicate a consistent story.

BOB GARFIELD: It's a, it's a mixed message which immediately is dissonant with the intended audience.

SAM HILL:Well it's a mixed message, and it's a message that's overwhelmed. There's no amount of advertising that can overcome the constant presence on the news media and on other media and in the streets of what these people see every day! So-- it, it's just a question of being outweighted in media terms. A couple of 30 second blips aren't going to outdo 24 hours of oppression.

BOB GARFIELD:What, what you're describing really is not a, a marketing problem but a distribution problem, because the democracy and the economic opportunity that America has to offer isn't really available -- as you say in your piece -- "It's not on the shelves" in most of the Arab world!

SAM HILL: We said that we're being out-marketed by a guy whose office is a cave. Al Qaeda is offering a value proposition that isn't particularly attractive! Benefits that pay off in the afterlife are not inherently a very strong value proposition. And yet, it's beating ours, because it's more compelling; it's more clearly articulated; and it goes hand in hand with something that they can actually reach for. So-- is it a distribution problem? Clearly distribution's a big piece of it, but I don't think we're helping ourselves on the marketing front either.

BOB GARFIELD:Now when you get through all the marketing talk in your piece, what you describe requires more than American propaganda -- more than American advertising. It requires a major change in American politics and policy with regard to some of these oppressive regimes in the Middle East. If it requires such a dramatic change in American policy, isn't it kind of silly to you know think of it in marketing terms?

SAM HILL: Well but they go hand in hand. I mean we don't think that there's any set of commercials we can run that are -- is going to reverse the, the widely-held opinion that we favor Israel in the Middle East. That is not going to happen. But we do think that if we set out on a course where we commit to a democracy in that area; to opportunity in that area; and if we tell people that and if we keep telling them that that is -- it's a useful part of the improvement process, and it also probably serves to hold us to our promise.

BOB GARFIELD:So the checklist of items is to find the right audience, receptive for the message; to find a means of communicating the message in a way that will be most resonant with this audience; and then finding the media through which to get it through. What is the message?

SAM HILL: Well I think the message is our tagline! America has the best tagline of any country ever -- the land of opportunity. That's a great tagline! We would have charged America millions of dollars to develop that tagline --if they had hired us to do it! It's a terrific tagline; it's a natural brand positioning; and all we have to do is promise opportunity! I think a lot of the other things that we promise -- freedom for women --these sorts of things -- different constituencies are ambivalent about in the, in the markets. But I think the land of opportunity -- that rings like a bell!

BOB GARFIELD: Well, Sam, thank you very much.

SAM HILL: Thank you, Bob.

BOB GARFIELD:Sam Hill is the president of Helios Consulting and the author of Sixty Trends in Sixty Minutes [sp?] published by John Wiley and Sons [sp?].

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Coming up, why America loves Donald Rumsfeld, and how tragedy gave birth to a kinder, gentler culture -- Not.

BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media from NPR.