Brand Central Station

It’s a bit ironic that I would be writing about the values of transparency and candor and their importance to the brand that is America during a presidential election campaign. In fact, I can’t think of a more appropriate time to demonstrate my point, albeit by contrast.

We start this entry with a brief history lesson and then a point or two.

Creativity and the First Amendment

Making a new fangled democracy from scratch isn’t easy. In fact, the Founding Fathers of the new union of American States found quite a few issues they couldn’t settle through negotiation (slavery being one). But once the Constitution was completed, there was one thing everyone could agree on … the Constitution wouldn’t pass.

The document had done a good job of covering detailed administrative and operational issues. Bureaucrats love procedure and process – and they haven’t changed much over the past two hundred years.

The difference this time around, however, is that there were a number of founders – most notably Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and a few others, who found significant holes in the constitutional document. These two commentators – each one from a different point of view on the role and importance of government – were able to provide an objective review of the document and joined the chorus of voices expressing concern for the protection of personal liberties.

The original Bill of Rights – those first ten amendments to the US Constitution – provide some of the most important protections to individuals in America. These limits on government were unique to mankind when they were introduced and are some of the most eloquent and elegant statements on personal freedoms in existence today. They reflected concerns of citizens at the time they were written and, for the most part, still accurately reflect the concerns and expectations of citizens today.

It’s no coincidence then that the freedom of speech has played such a significant role in defining the American brand worldwide over the past two hundred-plus years. Americans have, for the most part, rewarded brands, institutions and people who say what’s on their mind. Conversely, American consumers have demonstrated time and again their disdain for brands that lie to them.

Successful American icons are generally portrayed as “straight talking.” Whether those icons are cowboys, jazz, apple pie, high school football, John Wayne or Abe Lincoln – there is a natural love affair between things that are true to themselves and things considered to be “American.”

Honesty and candor are important to the pursuit of the American dream because true creativity can’t happen in a vacuum – or, worse still, in an environment of unkowns and lies. Creativity, the kind that can save people’s lives or change their environment to make it a better place, requires a clear understanding of the challenges that lie ahead.

Unfortunately, this expectation of candor and honesty can lead to some pretty ugly statements. When the President of the United States challenges terrorists to “Bring it on,” or that Osama bin Laden is “Wanted dead or alive,” Americans see a leader who is being honest with his feelings while others – especially those outside the USA – who see the ugly side of this honest streak emerge as bragadocio, or in the case of our current president, a “Texas swagger.”

The interesting thing to note here is that Americans don’t like it when they find out a brand is propped up with lies. This is true whether it’s a product, an institution, a celebrity or a politician. Enron. Michael Jackson. Even our current political leaders are getting pummeled for their inability to tell the truth or admit a mistake.

America is a noisy place.

One of the things many people who live outside the USA don’t seem to realize is how our First Amendment freedoms shape our media landscape.

Thanks to a Constitutionally-protected right to say whatever is on your mind, we have a culture that supports over 25,000 magazines, 40,000 newspapers and tens of thousands of broadcast and cable properties (television and radio). And while all of these media properties pick up and repeat the opinions and thoughts of Americans (and others), those messages are received differently inside America than they are on the outside.

Over two hundred years’ experience of deciphering this clutter has tempered Americans’ ability to listen and has made us very selective in how we filter information received through the media. This trait, alone, makes American media audiences different from others and it’s a fact we often forget.

And it’s a trait that most other foreign cultures don’t take into consideration when dealing with American customers or American brands.

(c) 2004 – Brand Central Station, all rights reserved. For more information on Brand Central Station, please visit our website.

If there were one core value I would associate with the American brand, it would be creativity.

In my marketing practice, I usually look for a historical root to each brand value we try to use with a client. That practice works in the case of Brand America as well – and especially in the case of creativity as an essential American value.

Creativity’s roots in American history

If you look at the coincidence of the birth of the Renaissance and the discovery of the New World, you find there is much less luck involved in the timing than you might originally guess. In fact, the discovery of the New World and its further development by primarily Western Christian cultures was, I believe, an inevitability given the geography and cultural growth occurring at the time.

As man was starting to re-discover lost knowledge about himself and the world around him, it was natural (and that word is key) to continue exploring – whether that be to satisfy one’s own innate curiosity or for the glory of some higher power (a ruler or deity in most cases). In fact, exploration carried with it several rewards, some social and some economic.

So it’s appropriate that on Columbus Day (today) we view the discovery of the New World as the first step towards American independence and the creation of a unique American brand.

It was with the discovery of the new world that people realized there was a far off place that was relatively unspoiled. The human mind – especially the Western mind – has a way of taking ownership of such an imagined place and building expectations into it. As a result, the New World became a place of hope and dreams. A place where the questioning could find answers whether in the form of religious freedoms, riches, commodities or land.

What these original immigrants found when they landed here was a country full of opportunity and, more importantly, peril. It was very easy to get yourself killed over here. Whether the indigenous people were friendly or not, one wrong move could send you over a cliff or into uncharted woodlands for ever.

The dance between danger and hope in America began here. The result was a unique kind of creativity born out of necessity and a blending of cultures, traditions and knowledge unburdened by conventional moral and social rules. People had to get along and had to work together or they would die.

It was that easy.

Within two hundred years, American philosophers and scientists (most notably Ben Franklin) started to lead the way in discovery and “enlightened” thinking. Why such leadership from such a small and distant country? After all, Americans were considered rude, backwoods huckleberries – especially by the British. Yet many of the American “Founding Fathers” were well educated in a variety of cultural backgrounds both by formal training and by virtue of exposure to so many cultures both native and foreign.

This blending of cultures combined with geographic size, relative isolation and virtually inexhaustible resources to create a prime environment for something new to evolve. The essential ingredient required to form the American culture, however, was creativity.

The more you read and understand this point in history, the more amazing it is that so many people came to a similar conclusion at approximately the same time. The essential elements of a creative environment – whether it’s found in an advertising agency’s creative department or a research and development lab – were brought to play in Philadelphia during the various Congresses of the 1770′s and 80′s.

Constitutional compromises were reached that broke new ground in how people would be governed. Faith and reason were untangled in the name of government and religious freedom for the first time in over a millennia. And innovations like paper money, free press and other conventions we consider as a part of our everyday life were created out of necessity.

Creativity has been – and continues to be – an essential part of the American psyche. It’s a core value of what distinguishes American things as being uniquely American. Such a value comes with several inherent risks (after all, people are naturally resistant to change), but the upside potential is what most Americans see when it comes to innovation and “all things new.”

Understanding the role of creativity in the birth and on-going development of America is essential in understanding what our brand means to people in our country and around the world.

(c) 2004 – Brand Central Station, all rights reserved. For more information on Brand Central Station, please visit our website.

I know I’m not the only one who feels like the “shine” has come off the reputation our country once enjoyed. We were supposed to have won the Cold War and with it forged a new world order built on peace, prosperity and freedom.

Right?

Unfortunately, with the US Presidential elections just around the corner, things in America don’t look much better today than they did four years ago when George W. Bush’s election officially ended the panacea of peace ushered in by Ronald Reagan – a realization of the world’s fragile situation which had slowly deteriorated under presidents Bush (the elder) and Clinton.

This is not a blog containing political screeds – or, for that matter, a political perspective that is neccessarily conservative or liberal (in the American political sense). Instead, this blog is a running conversation (held, at times, out loud) on the status of American prestige in the world and its significance to US businesses trying to build markets abroad and at home.

The name of this blog is: Marketing America – which is the title of a book I’m working on and from which much of this material is derived.

I would appreciate your comments, thoughts and observations as I continue to post material to this weblog. By reading (and, hopefully participating), you’ll be on the “inside” as I conduct research and form/test theories. I’ll report back on interviews with business people from around the world, discussions with journalists and other thought leaders – and I’ll even include my personal insights from the various consulting projects on which I work throughout the year.

Thanks again for your interest. This should be an interesting place to be.

Mike Bawden

President

Brand Central Station

I think it’s a valid question.

In her article in last week’s Ad Age, Hillary Chura reported on the NOP World study that warns of declining consumer interest in US brands. In their infinite wisdom, some researchers are calling this a “warning sign.” In my opinion, that’s kind of like noticing the bow of a sinking ship is under water and saying “it looks like we might get wet.”

There is an inter-connectedness between brands that, for some reason, we ignore. The fate of our interpersonal relationships, whether fortunate or miserable, is reliant on how we act, how others react to our actions and how we, in turn, process that information and act next. The fate of brands work the same way.

Perceptions of brands depend not only on how the individual sponsor of that brand acts and treats customers but also on the environment in which the brand operates. For many US companies trying to do business abroad, the actions of the US government taint brand perceptions either pro or con against their brand.

If people in a foreign country don’t agree with US policy, it’s easier to take out their frustrations on a McDonald’s than it is on the local Embassy. Rival brands with a local flavor might emerge (for example, there are new cola brands in Palestine, Turkey and other Middle Eastern regions to rival Pepsi and Coke). In general, life can get difficult for US-related brands when US policies (both military and non-military) are confrontational.

Please note that I won’t pass judgment on the policy decisions in question. The point here is that when the US takes a firm line on an issue, any issue, it’s bound to upset some people and that has an inevitable impact on the market share of US-related brands.

I’m testing this theory now. I’ve polled a number of journalists and PR professionals from around the world to find out how US policies have impacted perceptions about those brands one would closely associate with the USA. We’ll see what we learn.

I have no doubt that no matter the results, we’ll have more questions to ask the next time around.

Later.

GLOBAL CONSUMER REGARD FOR U.S. BRANDS DECLINES