I hope that Kurt Vonnegut, wherever he is, saw this WaPo story from last weekend. Seems that the Pentagon commissioned a study to learn from advertising and marketing techniques how the military could better sell the Iraq War to Iraqis:
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 brand identity that places what you are selling in a positive light, said clinical psychologist Todd C. Helmus, the author of "Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation." The 211-page study, for which the U.S. Joint Forces Command paid the Rand Corp. $400,000, was released this week.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 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."
It gets better. Er, worse:
The most successful companies, the Rand study notes, are those that study their clientele and shape their workplace and product in ways that incorporate their brand into every interaction with consumers.Wal-Mart's desired identity as a friendly shop where working-class customers can feel comfortable and find good value, for example, would be undercut if telephone operators and sales personnel had rude attitudes, or if the stores offered too much high-end merchandise. For the U.S. military and U.S. officials, understanding the target customer culture is equally critical.
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.
Below we see a lovely spokesmodel at the Abu Ghraib outlet failing to understand her consumer:
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Wow, this report may not convince anyone that the administration now, finally, knows what it's doing to secure Iraq, but we're in the midst of a full-on propaganda blitz that I hope people can withstand. Bush is clearly attempting to instill fear with his latest rhetoric about Al Qaeda of Iraq, while the military tries to persuade the public that it has a plan this time.
But this is what they've come up with?!?! "We will help you"?!?!
Rod: I believe I did a sufficient job of clarifying myself in the second post.
Right or wrong, this is your blog, and I don't wish to dictate how you run it.
Maybe our disagreement is about taste, with that photograph being of particularly bad taste. You could have easily made your point without it.
Maybe I'm also being a little self-conscious and reactionary. During the run-up to the war, and a couple years after, it was "Rah Rah! These guys are American heroes!" Now that the war has turned sour and much of the country rightfully against it, I am picking up a steady stream of criticism of not just the generals and politicians but of the actual grunts on the ground.
Let me clarify myself again: Criticism is not a bad thing when used judiciously. Criticism of the troops due to frustration at those at the top of the food chain is unnecessary (not that I'm accusing you of that, Rod).
That should have gone in the previous post. I'm afraid this is becoming a habit.
Maybe I'm also being a little self-conscious and reactionary. During the run-up to the war, and a couple years after, it was "Rah Rah! These guys are American heroes!" Now that the war has turned sour and much of the country rightfully against it, I am picking up a steady stream of criticism of not just the generals and politicians but of the actual grunts on the ground.
This brings up a question that I am loathe to ask (but I will anyway):
Why does being a grunt on the ground give one a free pass when it comes to criticism? Is that photo not of a grunt on the ground? Did that grunt on the ground torture prisoners - under orders or not? Was it not grunts on the ground who raped that girl and killed her whole family to cover it up? Are not the grunts on the ground the ones killing people - guilty and innocent alike?
I am not, in any way, saying that our men and women over there are all guilty, nor am I saying that they're all maliciously killing every Iraqi they can get in their sights. I *am* asking why evil is given a free pass when it's committed by a grunt?
"What drink do you suggest nicely balances an overcoming cynicism with the faint glimpse of naive optimism that seems to be fading every day like a dying star?"
A bottle of Everclear.
"No. I don't believe that for every good example there's a bad example. Good acts carried out by our soldiers every day in that savage country clearly out weigh the bad deeds committed by a foolish few."
No they don't not in the real world. This is a major reputation destroyer. I can offer you dozens of examples.
Kim M
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