200: Hearts and Minds
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From WBE's East Chicago, it says American Life, distributed by Public Radio International, on my request. So you've heard right, the U.S. State Department is hired a former ad executive to run an information campaign to make the United States more beloved in the Muslim world. We know that in many of the countries where our messages are sent that often they're distorted, they're one-dimensional, or they're simply not heard. This is Charlotte Beers, formerly of Madison Avenue, who's taken what is certainly a colossal pay cut to become Under Secretary of State in charge of this effort. And while many other things that she's announced at far are imminently sensible, better communication with foreign journalists, exchange programs, so more people from the Muslim world get to meet and know real Americans, she talks weird. I mean, I know I'm one to talk here, but she speaks in a particular kind of language. Here she is in a press conference talking about Muslims in America. Their conversion rate is astonishing. A 30 percent conversion in each year is about the fastest growing religion in this country, and a good number for any sales team. Here's a sales curve any corporation would envy. These are the percent of mosque founded in the U.S. over the last few years. It's obviously a growing, vital religion with some very wonderful people who have a pretty remarkable life here in the United States. To consider all the difficulties the United States faces in this effort to win the hearts and minds around the Muslim world, consider for a moment what it takes to do a regular advertising campaign, do something as simple as sell laundry detergent in Muslim Afghanistan and Pakistan. Up until very recently, Zidinka Moranovich was based in Karachi for the global ad agency Sachi and Sachi. Charge was selling Tide, or the version of Tide that they use over there. It's called Ariel, and it is for hand washing, since only 1 percent of the population has access to a washing machine. She said working in that part of the world was unlike any advertising she had ever done before. For me, everything that I knew as a principal in advertising is something that I knew that I had to completely forget about. Zidinka did this interview with our show and with the fine National Public Radio program on the media. Because, you know, we were facing with the completely different type of consumers. I mean, the average salary in Pakistan, you know, the real one is five dollars per month. The literacy rate, the real one for women is four, five percent, for men is higher, of course, twenty-seven percent. Then there was the fact that although it was women who washed clothes, it was men who made the purchasing decisions. Women didn't read magazines, they didn't see much TV. Zidinka had a product for them that she couldn't advertise to them. So the ad agency did a focus group and was sort of taken aback when six women, completely covered in black, came in to talk about detergent and about the ads that the agency was thinking of running. You know, we exposed them to certain commercials, we just wanted to get some kind of insights. And after, you know, showing them the concepts, asking them to tell us what they really think and which one would they choose, what they said is that they wouldn't use any, and we really ask why.
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