We will help you

Rebranding the US military

July 31, 2007 7 comments

What is going wrong with the US military adventure in Iraq? The problem, if you will believe it, is simply that they do not have a convincing brand identity. Such is the conclusion of a “study” or piece of “research”, as it is pleased to call itself, which was described in the Washington Post recently:

In the advertising world, brand identity is everything. Volvo means safety. Colgate means clean. IPod means cool. But since the U.S. military 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 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.”¹

There is something naggingly wrong with this military-as-brand metaphor, as implied by the Post reporter’s nicely ironical use of the word “consumers” to describe Iraqis at the sharp end of US military action. Iraqis, as far as is known, did not ask to be invaded and blown up; and indeed, so far as is known, do not want the US to stay in their country. This is not much like the situation in consumer goods, where I have never been forced to own an iPod or Volvo that I did not ask for. Still, let us see a little of what Americans got for their four hundred thousand tax dollars, by consulting the full text of the RAND report.² The right way to win hearts and minds before an invasion, it seems, is to deliver an appropriate “positioning statement”:

Consider one positioning statement example that is derived from a hypothetical “free from tyranny” concept: To [insert indigenous target audience] who have lived under brutal oppression: U.S. forces will rid your country of tyranny [promise] because we have opposed it for 200 years [reason to believe] and support your living free from tyranny [emotional and benefit]. [p70 n34]

It is a good thing that the authors cover their collective ass by calling this a “hypothetical” “concept”, even though it sounds remarkably like the kinds of things that were said, and are said, about Iraq. This particular version of it imagines the “hypothetical” lucky people to be invaded as idiots, or at best children, who will apparently swallow trustingly the notion that the US has indeed opposed tyranny for 200 years, that being the “reason to believe” that the claimed motivations for the incipient invasion are actual. The imminent “consumers” of military might, naïve and historically ignorant as all such “indigenous” peoples may safely be assumed to be, certainly wouldn’t remember anything like this, would they?

“Reason to believe”, indeed. But what purpose would such a “positioning statement” serve, if bought?

We posit that engendering positive indigenous attitudes toward U.S. military presence is important in that it will encourage support of the U.S. military, make U.S. forces more approachable to civilians, and enable more effective and trustworthy communications. [p. 75]

No doubt. So then, how exactly to “engender positive indigenous attitudes toward U.S. military presence”? By refraining from killing civilians or torturing people? Don’t be silly. All that’s needed is a brand refocus, or “Developing a coherent external and internal branding strategy”. This can be done, it turns out, by heroic private enterprises:

A private, nonprofit business group, Business for Diplomatic Action, is currently creating a unique and successful brand-development process for the U.S. Travel Industry Association with the goal of portraying a clear and friendly U.S. identity to those visiting from overseas. Business for Diplomatic Action consults key organizational stakeholders to create an intended brand identity that resonates deeply within those organizations while also being attuned to key consumer audiences. We recommend that the U.S. military and, ideally, the U.S. government consider undergoing such a branding process. It may reveal previously unforeseen ways to create an internal and external identity that successfully encompasses the operational spectrums that are likely to challenge the U.S. military for years to come. In suggesting how such a brand strategy might be applied to the United States, Business for Diplomatic Action’s chair, advertising guru Keith Reinhard, suggests a simple yet elegant promise: “We will help you.” While his recommendation was meant for U.S. foreign policy, the “helping” promise may be a positioning message applicable to the military. It provides an intent for U.S. forces that covers the application of combat power while also meeting the test for a range of other operations. It serves as a message of inspiration for indigenous audiences, one that encompasses — and thus would not conflict with — a wide variety of potential end states. [p. 77]

There is no limit, it appears, to how credulous these childlike “indigenous” consumers of being-blown-up-by-cluster-bombs are. Tell them that being-blown-up-by-cluster bombs is actually helping them and they will go for it! They will, in fact, take it as “inspiration”! Still, it must be admitted that there are limits to how far this branding magic can go:

The U.S. military must take pains to ensure that its operations and other actions do not conflict with intended brand identity, shaping themes, or other strategies designed to earn popular support among local populations. However, the United States and its allies must, at times, risk popular support by conducting kinetic operations. Virtually any kinetic operation has the potential to alienate civilians. [p. 80]

Yup, particularly if it kills them. And here, indeed, resides the melancholic limit of the authors’ scheme: “kinetic operations”, or bombing and shooting people, are inevitably the core of what any military is for. And, despite the authors’ subsequent efforts to suggest that saying sorry and promising to fix things will make it all better, even really great branding won’t overcome the extreme alienation of your average dead civilian.

This report’s use of currently fashionable “branding” theories is consistent with the US military’s history of describing its operations in terms of commerce, so that it appears to be business as usual.³ Even so, it looks particularly, even decadently desperate right now, as an Unspeak tactic for reframing inconvenient realities.

1. Thanks to reader Craig for alerting me. «
2. I admit here that I have not read all 241 pages of it, having become distracted somewhere along the way by daydreams of how I might have positioned Unspeak as a think tank “research” “study” and thereby earned barnfuls of dollars, instead of having it published normally, like an idiot. «
3. Unspeak, pp113-114. «

 7 comments

A real American meaning

On the vacuity of ‘progressive’, again

July 24, 2007 14 comments

Back in northern Europe (in a part not yet under water), I note that I’ve written before about how the word “progressive” in politics is smug and empty, indeed a term of liberal Unspeak, since it enables you to say you are in favour of things getting better without specifying exactly how they will. Happy, then, to see this reading confirmed by Senator Hillary Clinton last night. Asked by an audience member whether she would describe herself as a “liberal”, she distanced herself from that term and said:¹

I prefer the word “progressive,” which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century.

I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we’re working together and when we find ways to help those who may not have all the advantages in life get the tools they need to lead a more productive life for themselves and their family.

So I consider myself a proud modern American progressive, and I think that’s the kind of philosophy and practice that we need to bring back to American politics.

Who is not a “progressive” on this definition? Who from the Republican party will say that he does not believe in individual rights and freedoms, or that society is better when people don’t work together but stay on their couches with six-packs and reruns of The Sopranos? I did like Clinton’s invocation, though, of “a real American meaning” to the word “progressive”, as though the Republicans’ success in making “liberal” a dirty word had been the equivalent of giving it a meaning from another country where people are more filthy and devious: in all likelihood, a French meaning.

Meanwhile, during my absence, the Guardian printed my review of a novel about a man with a detachable penis (the novel’s French edition is everywhere in Paris this summer); and dsquared rose to a musical challenge from Unspeak (the very line that had so irritated Alastair Campbell) with wonderful inventiveness.

1. Via, as usual, WIIIAI. «

 14 comments

Too clever

Frank Luntz’s linguistic incompetence

July 3, 2007 15 comments

Amoral yoda¹ Frank Luntz has written a book, called Words that Work, that’s now out in the UK. Since Luntz, a “language architect” according to the cover blurb, is selling his expertise in language,² I thought it would be illuminating to offer here a few examples of that expertise, in advance of my Guardian notice of the book, which is sadly too short to contain the following fruits:

Most people use the term Orwellian to mean someone who engages in doublespeak, the official language of the totalitarian government in George Orwell’s 1949 novel 1984. (p49)

No! There is Newspeak and doublethink, but no “doublespeak” in Nineteen Eighty-Four.³

The original title of this book was Killer Words [...] My title was a flop. It was too clever. [Focus group participants] scratched their heads and asked: “Is this book about violence and death?” Or worse yet, “What possibly would compel you to study the words of killers?” (p53)

Too clever, indeed. Or perhaps too stupid? Or maybe, given Luntz’s glee in aiding the cause of obfuscating the realities of global warming,⁴Killer Words would have been a splendid title after all.

Occupy — We all know what occupy means today in the twenty-first century. But did you know that five hundred years ago, it was considered a dirty word? It meant to have sexual intercourse, literally, to “take possession of.” Once a taboo word that had all but disappeared from polite language, occupy has become completely innocuous today - unless you’re a tenant who ignores your landlord’s demands to move out. (p57)

Or unless you’re, say, an Iraqi. It’s interesting how deaf Luntz is to negative connotations that have anything to do with Republican policy, isn’t it? Meanwhile, Luntz’s little history lesson is steaming balls. The first recorded sense of “occupy” by the OED in 1325 is the one, still modern, meaning “to keep busy, engage, employ (a person, or the mind, attention, etc”. “Occupy” was also sometimes used to mean to have sex with (a woman) between the 15th and 18th centuries, but it was never “considered a dirty word”; it was never “a taboo word”, and did not “all but disappear from polite language”, since usage of its other senses continued throughout the period.⁵ Next:

Napkin – In the United States, you wouldn’t think twice about asking for a napkin in a restaurant. Be careful, though. If it were thirty years ago and you were in Great Britain, asking for a napkin might cause the waiter to laugh at you, thinking you wanted a nappy – the British word for a baby’s diaper. (p58)

WTF? In British English, “napkin” has meant, er, napkin since the 14th century. I’m not aware of this meaning having suddenly disappeared for a while 30 years ago: perhaps some of my more, ah, mature readers can help?

1. Jon Stewart’s unimprovable description. «
2. Mr Luntz is styled “Dr. Frank Luntz” on the cover, and the usual caveats apply about someone who is not a physician insisting on his doctorate in public. Luntz’s doctorate is apparently in pol sci. «
3. See, if you like, the Introduction to Unspeak. «
4. See Unspeak, pp42-3. And yes, all these references to Unspeak are intended to prod you into buying it, if you haven’t done so already. (If you have, thanks!) «
5. See comments #4 and #6 below. It is actually a funnier joke by Shakespeare if Doll Tearsheet is not reporting an actual language shift but complaining hypersensitively about the slightest possibility of double entendre. «

 15 comments

To justify our conduct

Blair foreseen

July 2, 2007 11 comments

A belated farewell, then, to Mr Tony “Still here, sort of” Blair, off to keep on fixing the Middle East. I thought this was a striking analysis:

He seems to have the power of convincing himself that what to me seems a glaring wrong is evidently right, and though he regrets that a crowd of men should be killed, he regards it almost as an occurrence which is not to be condemned, as if it was one of the incidents of a policy out of which he hopes for a better order of things. He even spoke of our being able to justify our conduct in the great day of account.¹

That is John Bright writing about William Gladstone more than a century ago, on resigning from Gladstone’s government over the bombardment of Alexandria. Plus ça change.

1. Cited in John Newsinger, “Colonial Wars and Liberal Imperialism”, in David Powell & Tom Hickey (eds), Democracy: The Long Revolution (London, 2007). «

 11 comments