Saturday, April 10, 2010

Challenge “Redefining US Image” - Obama moves to de-link terrorism from Islam

In a recent report, US administration says that, President Barack Obama has ordered a revision of America’s National Security Strategy with the aim to remove terms that link Islam to terrorism. The officials said the change would remove terms like “Islamic radicalism” from the National Security Strategy.

Bush administration described the war against terrorists as “the struggle against militant Islamic radicalism. This caused US a lot of Image issue amongst Muslims within the US and around the globe.

The report suggests that in 2008, the US National Counter-Terrorism Centre produced a document, called “Words that Work and Words that Don’t: A Guide for Counter-Terrorism Communication,” which encouraged government agencies and officials to avoid characterizing terrorist groups as “Islamic” or “Muslim,” as that could “unintentionally legitimize” their tactics.

Super! Words will have impact and this move will certainly help change the IMAGE but the question is how much efforts will be required to ensure regularly communicating this NEW Message to the larger audience around the globe and how long it will take to actually see the impact?

Any comments Brand Management guys?

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Promoting Brand Image – Learning from Sania Mirza-Shoaib Malik Story

(Download latest on Sania and Shoaib http://shoaib-sania.com/)
So were they international fame? No, Sania Mirza was known to tennis lovers, mostly of Indian origin, and Shoaib Malik was a cricketer known to few cricket playing nations.

Their marriage was not such a big event that could become headlines in most media around the globe! Only one move made them the most discussed couple on every form of media in only couple of weeks!

Was that a strategically planned, or was an accident? One character Ayesha was the key in what we saw “Creating the Mess”. But it was also proved that mess is sometime useful in building the Brand Image!

We may see Sania-Shoaib designer shop, sports products, novel, a movie (on their adventures wedding). Best of luck to them.

Learning: Keep exploring the new ways to promote your brand and yourself, becoming a household name should be the objective.