despite the fact that my sister makes a living from it, marketing, i think, doesn't actually work. the famously clever marketing campaigns in the past, have not been definitely linked to any improvements in sales. i laughed at the old "where's the beef" commercial back in the 1980s. but i don't think i visited wendy's any more because of it. there's little actual data that says a clever marketing campaign does anything other than increase name recognition. and the u.s.' problem is not name recognition.
but going back to ms. hughes' efforts. i thought they would be funny to watch. now they're beginning to alarm me. she's not just doing nothing to improve the image of this country. i'm beginning to think she's making things worse. as i've been reading about her visits to egypt, saudi arabia and turkey, it's apparent that hughes knows almost nothing about the region and yet displays the we-know-best attitude that helped coin the phrase "the ugly american." and that's the impression i get. when i try to imagine how the public in the countries she visits view her, it gets even more alarming. to borrow fred kaplan's thought experiment:
The main task of this posting is to improve America's image in the Muslim world. Let us stipulate for a moment that Hughes is ideally suited for the job—that she can figure out how to spin sheiks, imams, and "the Arab street" as agilely as she spun the White House press corps in her days as Bush's communications director. Even if that were so, why would anybody assume that she is the one to do the face-to-face spinning? Wouldn't it be better to find someone who—oh, I don't know—speaks the language, knows the culture, lived there for a while, was maybe born there?back when bush was first elected, a lot was made of the fact that he was the first president with an MBA. he was going to bring "the corporate mentality" into governing. and that's exactly what i think is going on here. when the public has a negative image of a company, the company generally doesn't change it's actions, it launches a marketing campaign to bamboozle the public into changing its mind. kaplan seems to be saying that hughes is the wrong person for the position--that her bamboozling is inept. but i think the u.s.' problems simply transcend marketing. when people associate our "brand" with images of death, they aren't going to change their mind because of a marketing campaign no matter how skillful that campaign is. hughes' inept performance is masking the impossibility of her mission. even if she were a fluent arabic speaker, i can't imagine what she could possibly say to reverse the impression created from years of unpopular policy decisions.
Put the shoe on the other foot. Let's say some Muslim leader wanted to improve Americans' image of Islam. It's doubtful that he would send as his emissary a woman in a black chador who had spent no time in the United States, possessed no knowledge of our history or movies or pop music, and spoke no English beyond a heavily accented "Good morning." Yet this would be the clueless counterpart to Karen Hughes, with her lame attempts at bonding ("I'm a working mom") and her tin-eared assurances that President Bush is a man of God (you can almost hear the Muslim women thinking, "Yes, we know, that's why he's relaunched the Crusades").
perhaps a long well-constructed argument could justify at least some of the u.s' policies to the arab world. but that's not what marketing is. which is why hughes is only speaking in "concise sound bites rather than sustained arguments." at best, america's image won't change at all because of hughes' tour. at worst, it will only reinforce the notion that this country is a dangerous condescending force that must be dealt with, one way or the other.
