Instead, let's look at her task not from the perspective of diplomats, politicians or journalists (who might regard her with a jaundiced eye), but from Madison Avenue's standpoint. From the perspective of Madison Avenue, this whole war on terrorism situation is a global marketing problem. And, by the way, that's how Osama bin Laden sees it, too. For him, the battle is in fact Coke versus Pepsi, that is, the Christian West versus Islam, two towering brands that are in a perpetual death struggle for supremacy.
Among the one billion Muslims around the globe, brand USA is in decline. As Ms. Beers surely knows, we don't have a brand awareness problem — America is the quintessential global brand — we have a brand perception problem. For many Muslims around the word, America is a selfish, self-righteous, self-absorbed monster that pays lip-service to democracy but supports despots throughout the Third World. And at the moment they see the U.S. as the instigator of a great humanitarian disaster.
Now, we turn to the Osama bin Laden brand, and it's rising and growing. Yes, he's responsible for the death of thousands of people, but from the view of the Islamic streets, he's an Islamic Robin Hood who's standing up to the U.S. and fighting for traditional Muslim values. Terrorists are in the PR and propaganda business. Their product is a kind of noxious publicity — they are about the sizzle not the steak. And they've been succeeding. Around the Third World, bin Laden t-shirts and posters are doing a brisk business. You don't see many people wearing USA t-shirts; they're more likely to be burning them. Bin Laden's brand loyalty is increasing; America's is fading.
We as Americans are befuddled about this. There have been reams of stories written under the banner of "Why They Hate Us," but in advertising-speak, that comes under the heading, 'How we Re-Position the Brand.' Which is where Ms. Beers comes in.
Ms. Beers is said to be considering using famous athletes and entertainers in ads for America. That's fine, but we know that a goodly percentage of the people we're looking to convert don't have televisions. And may not even know who Michael Jordan is. And if what she does is just a version of the "I Love NY" campaign writ large, it's certainly bound to fail. She is said to be behind the use of former ambassador Christopher Ross, who is fluent in Arabic, on al Jazeera TV, and that's certainly a good thing. We'll just have to see what she does.
But the question is, do we have a problem not with the brand, but with the product itself? And the answer to that is, yes, in part. We can't do anything about the fact that we are, for the moment, supporting a military leader in Pakistan who overthrew a democratically elected government.Or that we are cozying up to authoritarian leaders in Uzbekistan. But we can do what some have suggested: show what Islam is like in America. And that means to get American Muslims to talk about the freedom of worship in America. And to explain that America is not a pagan paradise, but a country that respects religion, no matter what it is.
But the product problem is not for Ms. Beers to solve. That can only be remedied by large policy changes, like supporting the right to self-determination in the Islamic world and perhaps even starting a Marshall Plan for Muslim countries after the war on terrorism is won. That will go a long way to repairing the product itself, and then, as they'll tell you in the ad business, the image problem will start to solve itself.