Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Marketing di guerra

Marketing experts say war is a tough sell
Sound bites, slogans strive for image of quick, clean war
Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 30, 2003
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URL: 
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/03/30/MN251264.DTL
With the first MBA president in the White House, the war with Iraq has
showcased modern principles of marketing and image management.
Bush administration sound bites and slogans from "Operation Iraqi Freedom"
to "leadership targets" attempt to frame the conflict as sanitary and tidy,
remote from the ugly realities of bloodshed, marketing experts say.
" 'One sight, one sound, one sell' is classic brand management," said Peter
Sealey, adjunct professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business at UC
Berkeley and former head of global marketing for the Coca-Cola Co. "When you
have this kind of blizzard of intensity, you need to focus on a single
proposition."
By and large, the Bush administration has done that, he said, distilling a
huge geopolitical conflict with multiple underlying political causes down to
a simple message of "freeing 23 million Iraqis."
But as the war fails to live up to its initial billing as a quick surgical
strike with few or no casualties, the marketing campaign will become a
tougher sell, experts say. And the media's up-close and detailed battlefield
coverage makes it harder for the administration to sway public opinion.
Slogans are no match for stark images of death and destruction on the
evening news and the morning's front pages.
"The war is not going as well as the American people expected," said Steven
Siegel, professor of political science at UCLA. "People expected a walk in
the park -- (Iraqi) people cheering our troops in the street, an easy
(battle) against an evil regime. Now it looks like something much more
dangerous, much longer. You can't continue to go on sound bites."
The administration's approach to selling the war is not that different from
any other brand campaign -- pushing buttons like patriotism, using buzzwords
and staying on message, experts said.
"The president is basically a CEO. His entire management style is right out
of an MBA handbook," said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a New
York brand and customer loyalty research firm. "That can be very successful
in both the world of commerce and the political world. He's been successful
in packaging and positioning the military effort so that the messaging, the
communication all resonates with real American values -- duty,
responsibility, protection -- all wrapped in the flag."
He added: "As a veteran (of the Vietnam War), I'm not being sarcastic.
Whether you support the war or not, whether you're a Democrat or Republican,
(you must admit) that they're doing a good job of communicating."
AVOIDING TERMS OF WAR
One way Bush has tried to spin the war is to avoid actually calling it one.
"Operation" and "conflict" have been the words of choice.
"When the president spoke on Wednesday, March 19, the 'shock and awe' talk
to say we're bombing Iraq, he only used the word 'war' once in that entire
four-minute speech, and that was in a broad context, not describing our
action, " said Jane Elmes-Crahall, a professor of communications at Wilkes
University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. "He used 25 to 30 euphemisms for 'kill' and
'war.' 'Decapitation strategy,' i.e., kill Saddam Hussein. 'Aggressively
remove the dictator.' "
The White House's designated moniker for the conflict encapsulates its
message.
" 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' is very descriptive of what the administration
either believes or would like us to believe the objectives are," said
Fredric Kropp, a marketing professor at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies. "If the undecided American citizen hears something
called 'Operation Iraqi Freedom,' it's more empathic than 'Operation Totally
Destroy the Enemy,' "
EXPERT NOT IMPRESSED
As president of Lexicon Branding in Sausalito, David Placek has crafted such
well-known product names as the Intel Pentium, the Subaru Outback, the Apple
PowerBook and Embassy Suite Hotels. He isn't impressed with Bush's
plainspoken naming strategy.
"With a little more thought, they could have come up with something more
memorable, easier to say, more eloquent," he said. "It's not quite
Churchillian in stature, not 'this vast iron curtain stretching across
Europe. ' That was a very rich metaphor."
Alan Burgis, president of San Francisco advertising agency Exile, said
naming the war "Operation Iraqi Freedom" trivializes it, "branding a war
just as we create a brand for detergents. It's so trite, it seems so wrong,
especially when people are dying," he said. "What purpose does it serve,
other than to make it (sound) more glamorous and more exciting?"
But others said the name plays well in Peoria.
"For the vast majority of Americans, only 15 percent of whom have a
passport, this is very effective rhetoric," said Nancy Friedman, principal
of Wordworking, an Oakland name-branding and consulting firm. "It's cowboy
lingo, dead or alive, combined with this puritan mission. It makes it seem
we're missionaries of freedom as opposed to an army that is bombing the
bejeezus out of them."
GULF WAR STARTED TREND
War propaganda is nothing new, of course.
The first Gulf War -- initially dubbed "Operation Desert Shield" by the
first Bush administration, then "Operation Desert Storm" -- is widely
considered the first instance of a brand-centric war, consciously tailored
for the mass media. The current war is even more heavily wrapped in
advertising theory and jargon.
Ironically, the war's most repeated catchphrase, "shock and awe," is
recycled. It dates to concepts of achieving rapid dominance espoused by the
Chinese military writer Sun Tzu around 500 B.C., revisited in the 19th
century by Austrian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, then summed up
in a 1996 Pentagon publication by two former military officers.

 in a 1996 Pentagon publication by two former military officers.
va comunque notato che Carl Phillip Gottfried von Clausewitz
http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/FAQs.html#Name
era Prussiano e non Austriaco
Bye