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Americans Aren't Consumers Who Have To Be Sold On War

01/11/07

Last August, Andrew Card, President Bush's chief of staff, was asked by a New York Times reporter about the timing of the administration's campaign to garner congressional and public support for war with Iraq.

Card explained that the persuasion would begin after Labor Day, because from a marketing point of view it is not a good idea to introduce new "products" in August. Our first MBA president is certainly not the only public official to apply business principles to running a government, but the war on terror and the plans for war against Iraq have highlighted new and startling trends in the way U.S. foreign policy is presented as a brand to both citizens and the world.

One tangible sign of this shift from policy to product was the October 2001 appointment of Charlotte Beers as undersecretary of state for public affairs and public diplomacy. As former chairwoman of J. Walter Thompson Agency and CEO of Ogilvy and Mather, Beers had successfully marketed, among other accounts, Uncle Ben's Rice.

Her new job is marketing Uncle Sam's reputation and image to the world: "rebranding" American diplomacy, as Secretary of State Colin Powell put it, to convey the image of trustworthy ally and friend, particularly to the Arab world.

Pentagon spokeswoman Tori Clark, a former president of Bozell Eskew Advertising, which specializes in corporate communications, has been the leading point person managing Defense Department efforts to be, as she often puts it, "on message." The Rendon Group is a "perception management" team hired by the Pentagon to convey a trustworthy U.S. brand image abroad.

As citizens, we should challenge the growing trend toward our government treating us as customers, clients and consumers. Indeed, there is evidence that U.S. citizens are thoughtfully questioning the wisdom of attacking Iraq. Polling evidence suggests that Americans favor disarming Iraq through U.N. inspections and perceive al-Qaida to be a more serious threat than Saddam Hussein.

The protests over the weekend in Washington, Portland and San Francisco, among other places, suggest that there are thousands of people who are not buying war with Iraq. A recent Pew Research Center poll of attitudes in 44 countries show that the rebranding effort so far has not succeeded abroad, and elections in Germany, Pakistan, South Korea, Turkey and Brazil suggest that "brand USA" is taking a beating in those markets, and the big winners in each of these countries oppose a unilateral attack on Iraq.

Foreign policy, after all, is much more than a product or a service, and American identity cannot be marketed like Starbucks and the Gap. Of course, slogans, propaganda and a host of other public diplomatic instruments have been used to try and influence citizens here and abroad (especially during the Cold War). But the increased use of marketing and branding strategies since the War on Terror began is disturbing and needs a prominent warning label.

The major purpose of branding, after all, is to create a unified, unchanging and ultimately superficial meaning to consumers. Democracy requires choice and deliberation, debate and dissent. Branding is all style and no substance. Foreign policy in a democracy should be the result of careful deliberation by elected officials who should take public opinion seriously, even when it demonstrates clear misgivings about a given course of action.

American identity cannot be easily reduced to warm and fuzzy associations that keep the consu-

mer coming back for more. In showing the world what we stand for, some assembly is required. We will be judged more by what we do than the image we project.

For that we need vigilant citizens, not consumers, who are willing to read the labels carefully and who refuse to be treated as extras on the set of an image created for the world to consume. It requires a government willing to convey information and respond to citizens who want more than meaningless marketing.

Catherine Scott is a professor of political science at Agnes Scott College in Decatur.

Source: ajc.com

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