Remora

Limited Inc, predictably, is a fan of Naomi Klein -- or at least is a fan of the idea of Naomi Klein. Sometimes, though, we feel that Ms. Klein allows the writerly ocassion, as Henry James might have put it, to pass her by. This is what we felt about her column, for the LA Times, on Charlotte Beers, America's official Image-meister:

"As undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, Charlotte Beers' assignment was not to improve relations with other countries but rather to perform an overhaul of the U.S. image abroad. Beers had no previous State Department experience, but she had held the top job at both the J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather ad agencies, and she's built brands for everything from dog food to power drills."

Unsurprisingly, Charlotte Beers task, orientation, and administration are not to Klein's liking.

"So why, only five months in, does the campaign for a new and improved Brand USA seem in disarray? Several of its public service announcements have been exposed for playing fast and loose with the facts. And when Beers went on a mission to Egypt in January to improve the image of the U.S. among Arab "opinion-makers," it didn't go well. Muhammad Abdel Hadi, an editor at the newspaper Al Ahram, left his meeting with Beers frustrated that she seemed more interested in talking about vague American values than about specific U.S. policies. "No matter how hard you try to make them understand," he said, "they don't."

"The misunderstanding likely stemmed from the fact that Beers views the United States' tattered international image as little more than a communications problem. Somehow, despite all the global culture pouring out of New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta, despite the fact that you can watch CNN in Cairo and Black Hawk Down in Mogadishu, America still hasn't managed, in Beers' words, to "get out there and tell our story." In fact, the problem is just the opposite: America's marketing of itself has been too effective."

And the drums go drum drum drum. The discrepancy between the American reality, which is a pretty consistently pursued imperialism, and American rhetoric, is hauled out, and we fade Charlotte Beers to black. All honorable stuff. Yet Limited Inc feels a distinct sense of the cobbled together, the held back, in Klein's piece. When Charlotte Beers went before the senate during her nomination, Time magazine's Richard Stengel wrote:

"It would be easy � too easy � to make light of Charlotte Beers, the former big-time advertising exec recently named undersecretary of state for public affairs. The so-called "queen of branding" who helped promote Head & Shoulders shampoo and Uncle Ben's Rice has now been assigned the job of helping to boost the U.S. image in the Muslim world."

Because a thing is easy does not mean it is not worth doing. Surely we should ask ourselves, were does this woman, this woman flying around the Middle East alienating Egyptian journalists,. come from, and why is she working for us, and why can't we make fun of her? According to an Economist piece, she once impressed a dog food client by eating dog food; she once impressed Sears execs by taking apart and putting together a power drill (she is apparently a woman of endless resources). She puts sweaters on her toy poodles and lounges around, apparently, with Martha Stewart, when Stewart is prepared to lounge.
This is the standard media identikit re Charlotte Beers.

Alan Rosenshine, in Advertising age, has risen to Stengel's call to seriousness, and delivers several solemnities about Beers' onerous task. He makes the point that we aren't selling our brand to terrorists. No, we aren't. We just aren't a-going to do that:

"Audience segmentation is a primary principle of branding. Terrorists and those who have turned hatred into violent fanaticism are not our audience. Their psyches are warped beyond any possibility of communication. Terrorists are criminals and enemies of civilization who deserve destruction in the name of justice and self-defense. The message of America must instead reach the many millions still in the process of being taught to hate us."


I'm glad that Rosenshine got that off his chest, but the interested by-stander has to disagree. Surely it would be cheaper to send Beers deep into the mountains of Afghanistan with an Uzi and letting her demonstrate to puzzled Al Quaeda execs stripping it and putting it back together again. She could also sample their simple fare, and get them rolling with her imitation of Martha confronting a badly done coq au vin. Instead, we waste her talents on Egyptian journalists. Even Beers seems to know that there's something hopelessly porkbarrel about her Nile tete-a-tetes. According to the NY Metro,

"Beers, for her part, seems to be busy managing expectations. Testifying before Congress, she recently characterized the propaganda war's goal as reaching young people. "It's the battle for the 11-year-old mind," she said, sounding ominously like someone who has decided that the 12-and-over demographic may already be a lost cause."

Actually, it isn't that the over 12 demographic is enfolded in the process of cult hatred. No, as any Piagetian psychologist can tell you, between the age of 11 and 12 the world begins to take on a cause and effect density. Bushiepoo, whose very ascension to the throne was in defiance of cause and effect, loses his aura of plausibility to the well tempered sixth grade mind. Best appeal to em while they are still in nappies.