Brand Fatale

Unlike the Muslim world, which has hundreds of millions of supporters who have adopted the Palestinian narrative in order to slam Israel, the Jewish world numbers only 13 million. Therefore, it is vital that every person who aligns himself with Israel be a part of the effort to change public perception of Israel.

In meetings we have held with colleagues from other Western countries, a similar picture has emerged, whereby the “official government message” is perceived as propaganda, and thus unreliable. It seemed people would trust news from an average person before they would an official government source. As absurd as this logic sounds, it is a reality we need to accept. However, it is important to remember that the messages coming from official spokespeople are still vital and this is not a call for Israeli spokespeople to fold away their suits and ties. At the same time, it’s important to diversify the arsenal of tools we’re using in bringing Israel’s narrative to the world. And here, we need each and every one of our supporters worldwide and in particular, Israel.

Research has shown that a very limited, in many ways distorted, image of Israel and its people has been allowed to shape the standard perceptions in the United States and other Western countries.   This is in part because of the relentless circulation of a false view by Israel’s antagonists. It is also in part because of media outlets that find pictures of armed Israelis in uniform and of a concrete wall between Jerusalem and Bethlehem - and, let it be said, of black-clad bearded men in prayer next to the Western Wall - to represent the “typical” Israel. And it is in part because the friends of Israel and those making Israel’s case have not been fully conscious of the problem or of ways to address it.

Consider, for example, the passage in Carlyle’s epoch-defining essay “Characteristics” (1831,) which proclaims: “The healthy Understanding, we should say, is not the Logical, argumentative, but the Intuitive; for the end of Understanding is not to prove and find reasons but to know and believe.”

In his preceding sentence, Carlyle says: “As in the higher case of the Poet, so…in that of the Speaker and Inquirer, the true force is an unconscious one.” Applying these concepts, it can be suggested that, while charges regarding Israeli “apartheid” can be rebutted by logical arguments disproving the accuracy of such terminology, the impression of Israel that branding is meant to reverse is of a harsh, brutal land whose residents are unwelcoming and utterly without feeling.

The British "country brand capital development" firm Acanchi is crafting a "new image" for Israel. "Our research shows that Israel's brand is essentially the [Israel-Palestine] conflict," explained Israeli Foreign Ministry official Ido Aharoni. "Even those who recognize that Israel is in the right are not attracted to it, because they see it as a supplier of bad news." Israel previously worked with the ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi and U.S. political consultants James Carville and Stanley Greenberg to address its image problem.

The rebranding effort began after September 2001, when government officials realized "Israel had an opportunity to escape its image as the main source of conflict with the Islamic word," because the "war on Islamic terror" had "gone global," reports Haaretz.

The Israeli government hired Acanchi in August 2008. Acanchi founder Fiona Gilmore recently toured Israel, as her firm prepares to "launch the new brand." The firm will highlight "Israel's scientific and cultural achievements." Acanchi "has helped to rebrand locales ranging from Lebanon to Northern Ireland."

After 60 years of Diaspora Jews complaining that Israel's hasbara efforts fall flat, there is finally reason for Jews worldwide to believe that the Foreign Ministry is beginning to get it. September marks the beginning of an ambitious new pilot program, being run by the consul-general in Toronto, Amir Gissin, to "rebrand" Israel.

Starting with print ads that will be featured prominently in bus shelters and billboards across the city, and continuing with radio and editorial content, Torontonians can expect to see Israel being portrayed as an innovative leader in technology that brings real benefits to their own lives.

Notably, one type of message that will be conspicuous by its absence is any type of explanation or defense of Israel's actions in regard to its politics. "Explaining why we are right is not enough," says Gissin. "Our goal is to make Israel relevant and attractive to Canadians and to refocus attention away from the conflict."

The Senate overwhelmingly passed historic legislation Thursday that puts the tobacco industry under the regulation of the Food and Drug Administration. Companies are weighing the impact of the bill, which they say also puts severe, perhaps unconstitutional, restrictions on advertising and packaging. Those limits, they worry, could undo business plans based on smokeless tobacco products, which they have been developing in anticipation of this day -- even as they were fighting to derail the legislation.

Altria praised the legislation overall, saying it will require all tobacco makers to operate "at the same high standards." The company said, however, that it has First Amendment concerns about some advertising curbs.

A couple from the United States got a shock when they learned their family photo was being used, unauthorised, on an advertising poster in Prague.Danielle and Jeff Smith used the photo as their Christmas card, and also posted it on an internet blog. A friend travelling in the Czech capital alerted them when he spotted the Smiths smiling at him, life-size, from a poster in a supermarket.

Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found.

Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network.

However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days.

A row between the fast food giant Burger King and one of its major franchise owners has erupted over roadside signs proclaiming "global warming is baloney".

The franchisee, a Memphis-based company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, has described Burger King as acting "kinda like cockroaches" over the controversy. MIC says it does not believe Burger King has the authority to make it take the signs down.

The dispute began to sizzle last week, when a local newspaper reporter in Memphis, Tennessee, noticed the signs outside two restaurants in the city and contacted the corporation to establish if the message represented its official viewpoint. Burger King's headquarters in Miami said it did not, adding that it had ordered MIC to take the signs down.But a few days later readers of the Memphis paper said they had seen about a dozen Burger King restaurants across the state displaying the signs and that some had yet to be taken down

It's a skill that was born out of necessity. "I remember being at the final congressional hearing in 1994 to decide whether the US government would fund the building of an atom smasher outside Dallas that would be twice the size of that at Cern, Geneva," he says. "A physicist was asked, 'Will we find God?'. The reply came back, 'We will find the Higgs Boson [sub-atomic particle].' That answer cost US physics the £12bn project."Thinking back, I would have said, 'This machine will take us as close as humanly possible to his or her greatest creation - genesis itself. It will give us a window on the instant of creation.' Before 1990, physicists only had to say 'Russia' to get their hands on cash, but since the end of the cold war, we have had to learn the language of the taxpayer."

sparticles - higher vibrations of the superstring, echoes from the 11th dimension

Both string and M theory predict that gravity can seep across parallel universes - which means their existence can be proven by looking for deviations from Newton's inverse square law of gravity. One such experiment has already been conducted in Denver. "The results came back negative," he smiles, "but this just shows there are no parallel universes in Denver. Physicists in Atlanta are already planning to repeat the experiment at the atomic level."

  Print  | E-Mail  | Share  | Feedback 05/26/2009 Digg Stumble Upon Reddit Facebook Del.icio.us Fark Yahoo Newsvine Google MySpace   Font: CULTURE WARS An Anti-Semite for UNESCO? Egypt's Culture Minister Farouk Hosni is a leading candidate to take over UNESCO in the fall. An alliance of intellectuals and Jewish groups from France, Germany and Israel are up in arms over the possibility due to remarks made by him perceived to be anti-Israeli.

Hosni, an artist by trade, has been Egypt's Culture Minister since 1987. He is known for being a liberal voice in Egyptian politics, opposing the veil for Egyptian women for example. But he has also made anti-Israeli statements in the past. Last year, he said he would "burn Israeli books in Egyptian libraries."

Egypt's Culture Minister Farouk Hosni is a leading candidate to take over UNESCO in the fall. An alliance of intellectuals and Jewish groups from France, Germany and Israel are up in arms over the possibility due to remarks made by him perceived to be anti-Israeli.

Com 80 anos de história, a Rádio Vaticano decidiu, pela primeira vez, abrir as portas à publicidade, anunciou o director, padre Frederico Lombardi, também porta-voz do Papa Bento XVI.O primeiro anúncio a passar na Rádio Vaticano já se conhece, será a empresa de produção eléctrica italiana Enel

Being a familiar name takes you miles closer to closing a sale. People like to buy from companies they've heard of.It turns out that this is an overlooked benefit of banner ads. Banner ads are fairly worthless in terms of generating clickthroughs... you have to trick too much and manipulate too much to get clicks worth much of anything. But, if you build ads with no intent of clicks, no hope for clicks... then you can focus on ads that drill your name or picture or phrase into my head. 100 impressions and you're almost famous.A household name. Not for everyone, but for people who matter.

To mark their range of 80's inspired trainers, Asics sent a model of an 80's inspired item (Delorean, Yamaha Keyboard, Small Bust of Margaret Thatcher*) to influential bloggers. The twist was that they only sent half of two of the items - the bloggers had to track down the other halves and do a swap to get one complete model.

And the models were made with a 3d fabricator, which automatically makes them among the coolest things in the world. They were delivered in wire-looking cages that had to be smashed to get to the model. All of this contributed to making sure the bloggers were into it and getting loads of pics on the relelvant sites. Seriously - have a browse.

To help rein in potential customers, Verizon uses data to inform it when a live chat is needed. For instance, it knows users typically drop off if they spend more than two minutes per step when signing up for DSL and can ping them an offer to chat live with a service rep after a minute expires. "If you can intercept them, not only can you save their problem in seconds, but you've kept them from disrupting how they're interacting with you," Kohn said.

Consumers also expect marketers to respond quickly no matter the issue. Take the now infamous Domino's saga. In April, Consumerist pointed to a video of two employees doing gross things to the food. Within a day, Twitter was alive with demands that Domino's address the matter. This desire to have answers in real time, wherever consumers are, is unlikely to change, said Andy Jacobs, chief technology officer at MRM Worldwide. "Our clients find themselves in a very reactive world," he said. "They're forced to respond to things. They need methods by which they can confidently and quickly publish info through the right channels."

HP, for instance, using tools from Yahoo and Tumri, recently ran a campaign with more than 20,000 ad permutations. To do this, said Catherine Paschkewitz, director of demand generation, HP Direct, "you need to take the time to think of your testing framework and the different things you want to test. It's having an up-front process as you're launching and refreshing campaigns."

Another way to make display ads more real time is to use live video. Visa, for instance, ran live video in banner ads earlier this year that showed scenes from cities worldwide. Last month, Intel embedded live chat in its banners. Earlier this month, GE CEO Jeff Immelt (pictured) delivered a Webcast address on healthcare issues live in a banner ad on top sites. And Volvo and Intuit have piped Twitter into ad units.

Another challenge for brands is that consumers now expect instant gratification when it comes to customer service, which is why marketers like Apple, Bank of America and Overstock.com now provide live customer service on their sites. Kevin Kohn, evp of marketing at LivePerson, which worked with BoA and Overstock, said this is nearly a requirement in a real-time world.