Golden Drum Awards 2009

The Golden Drum awards, held in Portoroz, Slovenia, between 4 and 9 October, culminated in a grand ceremony revealing a range of Drums, Winged Nikes and Golden Drum Grand Prix awards. The Golden Rose, presented to the best new European agency of the year, went to Leo Burnett Beirut, who had also won the Golden Net award. The Awards week was promoted this year with the theme of brainstorming, highlighted in a set of three posters and print advertisements.

Film

• Stiegl – Escalator (Silver & Golden Drums), Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann, Austria
• Helsinki Missio – A Soldier’s Last Wish (Silver Drum), TBWA\PHS Helsinki, Finland
• Children Under Protection Agreement – Vase (Silver Drum), McCann Erickson Poland
• Pert Plus – Stop the Suffering (Silver Drum), Leo Burnett Beirut, Lebanon
• Budejoviky Budvar Pardal – Real Beer for Real Guys (Silver Drum), Kaspen Prague, Czech Republic
• Elais/Unilever Altis Olive Oil – Goodness (Silver Drum), McCann Erickson, Athens, Greece
• Mars – Squirrels, BBDO, Russian Federation
• Ilta-Sanomat Newspaper – The Way It Was Meant To Be (Golden Drum), Hasan&Partners, Finland
• Interior Club Furniture Salon – Transformations (Golden Drum), mfive creative group, Moscow
• National Museum – Munich (Grand Prix), Euro RSCG, Czech Republic

Press

Toy Museum – Actionman (Silver Drum), Leo Burnett Istanbul

LTD Headhunter – Manager (Silver Drum) TWIGA, Moscow, Russian Federation

Greenpeace Construction Loan – Birds (Silver Drum), BBDO Moscow, Russian Federation

Finansbank – Accident (Silver Drum), DDB&Co Istanbul, Turkey

Commercial Film Producers of Europe and Shots Young Director Award – Affair (Silver Drum), TBWA\PHS Helsinki, Finland

Beta Playboy (Golden Drum), Leo Burnett Beirut, Lebanon

CNN Weather Report – Lightning (Golden Drum), DDB & Co Istanbul, Turkey

Gursory Resim Kursu Art Course – The Fastest Course (Golden Drum), DDB & Co Istanbul, Turkey

Max Factor – Eyes 1 (Golden Drum), Leo Burnett, Warsaw, Poland

Sinai Kimya Esemmat – Mosquito (Golden Drum), TBWA\Istanbul, Turkey

Outdoor

WWF – Garden Furniture Set (Silver Drum), Change Integrated, Poland

Dank Second Hand Furniture – Table (Silver Drum), DDB & Co, Istanbul, Turkey

Toyota Auto Lovše, Greeting Card (Silver Drum), Saatchi & Saatchi, Slovenia

Bayer, Asprin – Headache 1 (Golden Drum), Graffiti BBDO, Romania

T-Mobile Outdoor Messages (Golden Drum), MUW Saatchi & Saatchi, Bratislava, Czech Republic

Hariri Foundation – Khede Kasra (Grand Prix), Leo Burnett Beirut, Lebanon

Radio

Copycenter Tailan – Both Sides (Silver Drum), TBWA\Central Asia, Kazakhstan

Ace Bleach and Detergent – Burger Town (Silver Drum), Grey Istanbul, Turkey

Newpan – Heats up in 3 Seconds!!! (Golden Drum), Baumann Ber Rivnay Saatchi & Saatchi, Israel

Design and Art Direction

• PKP Proximity Vienna – Enough Practice! (Silver Drum), Austria
• Greenpeace – Thermo Mug (Silver Drum), NEXT Advertising, Romania
• Ekka/Mercedes Benz – The Right Move (Golden Drum), Day6 Athens, Greece
• Diageo Johnnie Walker Blue Label- Details (Silver Drum) Leo Burnett Moscow, Russian Federation
• Amnesty International – Reprieve (Silver Drum) Draft FCB, Austria
• Intersport Saemann, Flash Billboard (Silver Drum), Butter, Berlin/Duesseldorf, Germany
• Aids Africa Solidarity Fund (Fonds Solidarité Sida Afrique) – Clocks (Golden Drum), BETC Euro RSCG, Paris, France
• Jugend am Werk, Mitten ins Herz (Silver Drum), Fashingbauer & Schaar, Austria
• Draft Black – Cup & Kettle (Silver Drum), Leo Burnett, Moscow, Russian Federation
• Skoda Auto, Owl (Golden Drum), Leagas Delaney Praha, Czech Republic
• Fazer Leipomot Vilpuri Packaging Design (Silver Drum), Hasan & Partners, Finland
• Wrigley Orbit – Can’t Touch This (Silver Drum), Mark BBDO, Prague, Czech Republic
• Weingut Andreas Tscheppe – Wines (Golden Drum), Demmer, Merlicek & Bergmann, Austria
• In The Palace, Balchik, Svnth Shrt Flm Fstvl (Silver Drum), New Moment New Ideas Y&R, Sofia, Bulgaria
• Portuguese Red Cross, Store+ The store that Sells Hope (Silver Drum), Leo Burnett Lisboa, Portugal
• Just Move Ltd Brand Identity (Golden Drum), Transformer Studio, Moscow, Russian Federation
• Voskhod, Yekaterinburg – Failsafe Calendar (Silver Drum), Russian Federation
• Rahofer, Palfinger Annual Report 2008, Times Are Tough (Silver), Austria
• Buick Style Guide (Golden Drum), Leo Burnett Chicago, USA

Media

• Showtime – Nurse Jackie on Kindle (Silver Drum), OMD, USA
• Neuroth – The World´s First In-Ear Commercial (Silver Drum), Jung von Matt/Dunau, Austria
• T-Mobile Slovensko – Messages, (Golden Drum), MUW Saatchi & Saatchi, Slovakia
• Yes Satellite TV – Deus (Golden Drum), McCann Digital Israel, Lebanon
• Hariri Foundation – Khede Kasra (Grand Prix), Leo Burnett Beirut, Lebanon
• T-Mobile Cinema Messages (Silver Drum), MUW Saatchi & Saatchi, Bratislava/Med, Czech Republic
• Proteatr, International Festival of Theaters for Disabled – You’ve never seen such actors (Silver Drum), Leo Burnett, Moscow, Russian Federation
• Rustholi Renovations, The container that became a home (Golden Drum), Hasan & Partners, Finland
• WWF – Vote Earth Monuments (Golden Drum), Leo Burnett Sydney, Australia
• Nissan Center Europe – Ceiling Cinema (Silver Drum), TBWA\Germany, Duesseldorf, Germany
• Bucharest Police – Accidents can happen to anyone! (Golden Drum), Arsenoaiei & Matasel Bucharest, Romania

Best Act Award

• Pampero Rum – World´s First Ephemeral Museum (Silver Winged Nike), Leo Burnett Lisboa, Portugal
• Portuguese Red Cross – Selling Hope (Gold Winged Nike), Leo Burnett, Portuga

Social media, brand route to connect with and built trust ... best practice

How organizations have embraced social media to connect with and built trust and affection among customers?

Some great examples of simple, effective social media strategies that have humanized organizations and allowed them to build better relationships with customers. 

1. They can’t talk about anything broader than their own products

Chris Brogan shared how Citrix Online created the Workshifting community to address the rise of telecommuting and remote work. Sure, it ties in with Citrix’s GoToMeeting/Webinar/PC product line, but the blog isn’t a commercial for its products. The same holds true for Kodak’s photography blog that Chief Blogger Jenny Cisney talked about. It’s about photography and creativity in general, not about Kodak cameras. Greg Matthews shared how Humana developed the Freewheelin bicycle sharing communities with plenty of online and “real life” components to the program. Bicycles don’t have much to do with health insurance specifically, but they are about being healthy. If a company is only talking online about its specific products and not looking for ways to connect to the bigger picture, it’s pretty difficult for people to be engaged.

2. They listen to customers but don’t take any action

If you’re going to listen to your customers, you’d better be ready to do something about what you hear. Valeria Maltoni noted that if a company creates an online presence that’s open and allows customer feedback, it creates the expectation that the company is going to do something with that feedback. Worse than not being heard is being heard and then ignored. Paula Berg from Southwest Airlines shared how a simple blog post stating the airline was considering assigned seating amassed tons of customer comments showing a lack of support for the idea. This feedback changed the direction of their internal debate and led to a new boarding procedure that maintained the open seating arrangement.

3. They aren’t calibrated internally with the technology

Jason Falls chastised corporate Web sites for being little more than online brochures. Customers expect interaction. Content creation is key to social media success, and every company should have a Web site with a content management system that allows for quick, easy content creation without the IT department needing to recode a Web site. Anyone in the organization should be able to publish via a CMS. And companies can’t expect to have a strong social media presence when social sites are blocked internally to employees.

4. They’re not framing risk accurately

Dharmesh Shah reminded us all that a corporate blog has never been fatal to an organization. NBC cameraman Jim Long said the often a company’s entry into social media is a clumsy, shotgun blast and that there’s an equal chance of looking foolish by having a ham-fisted marketing department launch a social media presence as there is if a rogue employee “goes off” on Twitter. The risk of social media is not abated by not participating. And really, while there have certainly been some hiccups and miscues along the way, social media has yet to be the undoing of any company.

5. Their internal culture isn’t aligned for social media success

The customer should be at the core of the brand. When policies, procedures, products and processes become more important than the customer, there’s no way social media efforts can be effective. When your employees are more concerned with what’s in or out of their job description than doing the right thing to help the customer, that’s not a culture that’s likely to build trust and advocacy for your brand. Yes, Zappos was cited time and again as a case study, but largely because it has a culture that makes social media work. All of its employees are focused on customer service at the core. The same holds true for Southwest Airlines.

Crowdsourced branding, a disaster for Kraft?

When Kraft launched a spin-off of their uniquely Australian Vegemite spread, they turned to consumers for a name… and it was dropped four days later. Last week another name was announced, can Kraft make it right this time?

The year was 1923 when chemist Cyril Callister took out a newspaper ad announcing his new food invention, a salty yeast extract spread made from the by-products of beer manufacturing, and a £50 award for the best name. Similar to the British Marmite, the sticky brown paste has become a staple in the country, selling more than 22 million jars per year. Over 85 years later, Kraft Foods followed Callister’s plan to name a new milder variation—a Vegemite and cream cheese blend—with much less fanfare.

“Now all it needs is a name,” Kraft launched the new product with a TV commercial by JWT Australia.

iSnack 2.0

Kraft Foods launched an Australia-wide contest in June 2009, putting the product on grocery shelves with special “Name Me” packaging. Over 48,000 entries came in across the country during the three-month contest, (somehow) resulting in the name ‘iSnack 2.0.’
Announced September 26th during the 2009 Australian Football League Grand Final, the name was chosen by a panel of marketing and communication experts in an effort to market the longtime staple to the younger ‘iPod’ generation. Replacing the temporary packaging, the new labels were printed with the tagline: “iSnack 2.0, because it's the next generation Vegemite.”
The name was coined by Dean Robbins, a 27-year-old web designer:

It was all a bit tongue-in-cheek really, the ‘i’ phenomenon and Web 2.0 have been recent revolutions, and I thought the new Vegemite name could do the same.

Left: Original Vegemite spread (Photo: StephenMitchell, Flickr); Right: Packaging for iSnack 2.0 and the “Name Me” contest (Photo: avlxyz, Flickr)

Cheesybite, Vegefail

Within days, criticism was heard all over Australia, especially among the product’s tech-savvy target market who took to YouTube and Twitter (making #Vegefail a trending topic). “The new name has simply not resonated with Australians. Particularly the modern technical aspects associated with it,” Kraft said in a statement on September 30th. The controversial name was discontinued only four days after its launch.

Our Kraft Foods storeroom currently has thousands of jars of the iSnack 2.0 named Vegemite. This product will be distributed around Australia, and will continue to be sold in supermarkets for months to come – until Australia decides upon a new name.

Nameless once again, Kraft scrambled to short-list another six names and let the public decide. Polling more than 30,000 people, Kraft announced the product’s newest name on October 7th: ‘Vegemite Cheesybite,’ which captured 36% of the votes (although many chose ‘none of the above’ and were not included in the vote).

Left: Vegemite Cheesybite, Kraft’s third and (hopefully) last packaging for the new product; Right: Results from Kraft’s survey
The name ‘Cheesymite’ was never considered, due to its popular use for another cheesy Vegemite-based snack in Australia and New Zealand. However it has been reported the name Cheesybite might come with its own legalcan of worms (just what they need).
The new Cheesybite jars will replace the iSnack variation in the coming months.

What does this say about the brand?

Kraft assures us this is not a publicity stunt, “We are proud custodians of Vegemite and have always been aware that it is the people's brand and a national icon.” Regardless, the publicity has the remaining iSnack-branded jars flying off grocery shelves and making their way onto eBay as “rare collector’s items.”
Some have said this incident has damaged the Vegemite brand in Australia. No one can deny iSnack 2.0 was a terrible choice—it says nothing about the product, and even the thought of it makes anyone who’s ever used an iPod roll their eyes (who were these marketing “experts” that handpicked the name from over 48,000 entries, anyway?).
But after all this, one thing is very clear: Australians are passionate about the Vegemite brand (and that’s what every brand wants)

Scam Ad Crackdown: Are the Awards Shows Wussing Out?

Award shows are getting tough on scam ads, but is it tough enough? Especially if two recent scam ad policies mean different shows have very different rules for scammers

The DDB Brasil WWF ad that provoked new ad show policies.

The Cannes Lions Advertising Festival and the Art Directors Club today released policies to deal with scam ads—work submitted to the shows without client approval or that only ran once in little-seen paid media outlets. Outlining how it will handle offenders, Cannes stated it will only ban the individual creatives responsible for the faked work from entering work in the future, not their agencies.
"We believe that banning agencies from entering on a wholesale basis is unfair on blameless individuals," the Cannes statement said. "There are many people who work in agencies who may not be involved with an erroneous entry and therefore should not be penalized." From there, the length of the ban will be determined on a case by case basis. Emails to determine just exactly how this statement differs from Cannes' previous submission policy were not returned.
The Cannes policy takes a decidedly softer position than that of One Show, which implemented new rules in September after DDB Brazil's incendiary depictions of the 9/11 attacks in its "Tsunami" ads caused public backlash. The print ad has received a One Show merit award that has seen been rescinded. (It's important to note that One Show and the British awards show D&AD are non-profit operations, while Cannes is not.)
One Show's harsher stance means a five year ban for agencies submitting ads made for fake clients, without client approval or ads that have only run once or during late-night TV. And for all instances of fakery, the responsible creative will be banned for five years, too.

The Art Directors Club scam ad policy does not include bans at all; it will only trumpet fake work to the other top shows, especially since its awards come early in the season. With entries often submitted to multiple show, the ADC will simply let the Andy, Cannes, Clio, D&AD, One Show and Webby awards know when it's found a fake.
"The decision was that we will disqualify the work," said ADC chief executive Ami Brophy, adding the show hasn't made a statement of this type before, but thought one necessary after recent controversies sparked by the likes "Tsunami." "With regards to banning, our decision is rather to promote the behavior we'd like to see. Our approach is to stand together with the other shows and we will do our best to search scam ads out." The ADC's statement also pointed to its "Playground" category, launched four years ago as the place for non client-approved ads. Ms. Brophy also notes that the ADC rules resemble D&AD's "name and shame" policy.
DDB is hoping to root out scams even before they get to the awards juries. DDB Worldwide chairman Bob Scarpelli re-circulated the network's ethics code and outlined that the multi-office creative council will redouble its scrutiny of awards submissions, according to people familiar with the matter. The review process will include more thorough and brand new screening methods for entries.
With renewed attention to scam ads and these new guidelines running the gamut of accountability, do creatives think that these new guidelines will actually work? Or that they go far enough?

BBDO's David Lubars

David Lubars, BBDO North America chief creative and chair of the Cannes press and film juries, thinks even the strictest new rules are necessary. "It's the right thing to do," he said. "I think it'll be a successful deterrent. A lot of times scam ads are obvious, but for when it's not clear, these are good guidelines for jury members."
Conversely, Lars Bastholm, Ogilvy's chief digital officer and the 2009 cyber jury chair at Cannes, finds One Show's penalties too steep. "Five years banned for the ECD in question?" he said. "That could be the end of a career. You'd have a hard time getting an agency to hire you after that." Though, he does think the next scammer caught under these new guidelines will send a message to the creative community. "If someone somewhere submits a fake ad and it gets out, the repercussions will become clear," he said. "That's when people will get it."
Since careers can be made and now potentially lost as a result of awards, Rob Reilly, partner and ECD at Crispin, Porter + Bogusky and ADC's hybrid award chair for 2010, finds the shows' definition of "scam ad" too loose. "We need one sharply defined way to categorize fake work across all shows," he said.

Crispin's Rob Reilly

"There isn't enough we can do to stop scam ads," Reilly said. "But what needs to happen is to determine what qualifies as a scam ad." Reilly points specifically to ads that only run once, which is an often used tactic for making ads created specifically for awards consideration eligible for entry. While the One Show has identified a scam as an "ad that has run once, on late-night TV, or only because the agency produced a single ad and paid to run it itself," other scam ad policies have not been as clear. Cannes, on the other hand, acknowledges in its statement that "there are many definitions of 'scam,' and the issue is rarely black and white." It simply specifies clients must pay for media for ads to be eligible.
"But what about virals, ads that you put up on YouTube to see if they generate interest?" Reilly adds.
Last month, during the Spikes Asia Festival in Singapore, Cannes Lions Chairman Terry Savage could not conceal his concern about the decision by One Show, and was openly seeking input from the top regional and global creative execs about where the Cannes Lions should draw the line for its three festivals--Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia and the Dubai Lynx award for the Middle East.
While Mr. Savage is opposed to scam ads, he also said he was wary of banning whole agencies from entering awards because of the misdeeds of a few bad apples. "There are a lot of good people out there who shouldn't suffer because of someone else's mistake."
Ironically, Singapore, the setting for the Spikes event, of which Cannes became a co-organizer this year, has had one of the world's worst reputations for producing scam work for over a decade — a sad fact that has helped build the reputation of some of the world's top creatives today.
The Dubai Lynx also suffered a major scandal this year when the Agency of the Year had to return its awards after bloggers uncovered that most of them had been won for scam ads.

----------------------

We in the middle east have our own share of scam ads and ghost ads.. and it's been kind of a trend or basic practice by highly awarded creative networks. some samples for your reference: 

• -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/mbc-is-busted-ripping-off-tv-ads-ideas.html 
• -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-crapwe-had-to-tear-down-to-re.html 
• -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/09/good-bad-and-ugly-in-financial-ads.html 
• -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/tattoo-yourselflebanon-impact-bbdo-is.html 
• -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/tattoo-yourselflebanon-impact-bbdo-is.html 
• -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-dimension-of-advertising-is-simply.html

VIA

Discount Bank turns on its green credentials by turning off.

Discount Bank - Israel - Dim Thinking

Discount Bank in Israel declared itself a ‘Green Bank’ but rather than have this as a meaningless soundbite it sought a practical, long-term way to make a difference to global warming. Its solution was to create stickers reminding people to switch lights off and save energy.

Empty skyscrapers with their lights left on at night, consuming vast amounts of unnecessary electricity, are an all too common sight. Discount Bank knew that by taking simple steps it could make a big difference to the environment. It was also aware, however, that many campaigns of this type are over and forgotten almost as quickly as they are implemented, so it wanted to leave a permanent reminder for its staff to think ‘green’.

A sticker was placed over every light-switch in the Discount Bank tower – and in a financial skyscraper, that’s a lot of light-switches. At the top of the sticker was written ON, at the bottom OFF and in the middle, GLOBAL WARMING. The message being that when you switch on the light, you switch on global warming; when you switch off the light, you switch off global warming.

In just one day, the Discount Bank tower became a green tower. Every single employee is now exposed daily to the strong connection between electricity consumption and global warming, and can, using one small finger contribute to the effort to alleviate global warming.

BRAND: Discount Bank

BRAND OWNER: Discount Bank

CATEGORY: Financial

REGION: Israel

DATE: Sep 2009

MEDIA AGENCY: TBWA Chiat Day

MEDIA CHANNEL

FREEBORD: STREET ILLUMINATI

Crew of Freeborders take over an SF street to create a real life video game. http://www.freebord.com.

The" Israel" Brand

The public relations (PR) industry has made exceptional use of the communications revolution. But for all the globalizing effects of multinational campaigns, many brands seem inextricably tied to their home country. Injecting products into foreign markets has, to a certain extent, acted as a driving force in the way nation-states are perceived internationally. Coke, Marlboro and Starbucks are inseparable from their provenance, and Brand America is intimately tied to its products. But consumerism alone doesn’t tell the story of how America is perceived in the world; military adventurism and moral exceptionalism undermine the feel-good aspects of consuming Americana. A nation’s brand is inextricably tied to its actions in the world.

Nations, like products, are perpetually re-branded for the international market. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), for example, spends millions on targeted PR campaigns in a number of Western cities designed to shift associations away from war and occupation.

In March 2009 New York-based GfK Custom Research and British “place branding” consultant Simon Anholt released the global Nation Brands Index (NBI). It rates countries based on international perception of various categories, including tourism, investment, and immigration and governance. Germany ranked 1st overall, the UK 3rd, Canada 4th, the US 7th and China 28th. Iran placed 50th and Israel failed to make the top 50. While it’s tempting to dismiss nation branding as an example of the PR industry’s cynical commodification of the world, its assumptions can shed some light on Israel’s self-inflicted inability to re-brand.

Nation branding reveals the inherent contrivance of the concept of “nation” – a European invention born of a disastrous period of 15th-century religious warfare, leading to a centralization of violent power in the hands of a sovereign. Nationalism is a product of 18th- and 19th-century Romanticism, and every bit a human artifice. It helped radically reconfigure Western political identity toward our seemingly immutable system of nation-states. Israel came late to the game and has, from its beginnings, undertaken a conscious and very public project of constructing a national identity of godly strength. The pre-state Zionists dreamed of constructing the masculine “new Hebrew” of Palestine in contrast to the anemic “Galut Jew” of the diaspora – all at the price of creating the Palestinian refugee diaspora. Israel’s brand has suffered since.

Nation branding is also premised on the fact that no single actor can simply dictate political perception. People have to agree on, or be convinced of, political facts in order for them to become reality. Conscription and astronomical military spending project Israel’s tough guy identity to the world, leading to a dominant perception of violence and aggression. Go figure.

As Anholt admits, “Places can’t construct or manipulate their images with advertising or PR, slogans or logos … Places can only change their image by changing the way they behave.” Nation branding is doomed to failure unless action substantiates pomp.

• • •

In August 2008 the Israeli consulate in Toronto launched a one-year test market for a re-branding campaign. Roundly derided by human rights and peace groups, the campaign idealized Israel as a hub of high-tech research and development, cultural history and glitzy beach life. When asked directly about the goals of the campaign, Consul General Amir Gissin stated, “Israel’s branding process is first and foremost an internal process aimed at answering the question: Who are we as Israelis when we are at our best? The [Toronto] pilot was therefore not a PR campaign but rather an attempt to test the public opinion response to Israeli answers to this question.” While Mr. Gissin dodged questions about the impetus for the campaign, his public remarks are infinitely more candid. In September 2008 he told a group of supporters: “It’s not that our audience is ignorant. They feel they know too much … The Western media narrative is the poor Palestinians, Israeli tanks and Israeli guns. We’ve been portrayed that way for years.” He continued, “I offer you a framework for winning the public relations war.”

When Israel, with its influence on the North American media, complains of an overemphasis on its negative aspects, it proves the difficulty of reconstituting a national brand without real action. While portraying Israel as a single-issue country would betray a lack of knowledge, the fact is that in 2008 Israel spent $2,300 per person on its military – the highest in the world. When asked about this, Mr. Gissin rebutted, “[The] question reflects a school of thought that assumes that Israel is not allowed to be viewed outside the framework of the conflict. It is absurd. The conflict is a major part of Israel’s brand, and we are not hiding it. We believe, however, that Israel is more than the conflict, and we will continue to share information about that.” Perhaps.

Other than destroying southern Lebanon in the 1980s, clashing with Hezbollah and bombing Syria, Israel hasn’t fought anything close to a state army since 1973. So the world’s highest per capita military budget is arrayed toward the world’s longest-running occupation of an often indigent and defenseless population. The December 2008/January 2009 assault on the civilian infrastructure of Gaza was perhaps the clearest possible message Israel could have sent to the world.

It was easy enough to sell the assault to a society instilled with the belief that intergenerational war and occupation are normal. A Tel Aviv University poll showed almost 90% support for the slaughter, so Mr. Gissin’s worries about Israeli self-esteem seem misplaced. External perception, of course, has fared much worse. Spurred by international outrage, the United Nations has launched an investigation into war crimes and illegal use of weapons: the independent press and human rights groups (both Israeli and international) have brought serious allegations against Israel; soldiers who took part in the war are speaking out; and even the American State Department is beginning to understand the occupation as a detriment to Israel’s, and consequently its own, national brand. Bikini models and one of the world’s most accomplished high-tech sectors can’t grab the spotlight long enough to distract the world’s attention from the brutality of the occupation.

This hasn’t stopped the MFA from trying. In terms of Anholt’s branding criteria, human rights abuses cannot be taken completely out of the realm of international perception, but they might be superseded by generically sexier issues. Israel’s latest stunt to woo the Canadian audience – a Jewish hockey tournament in northern Israel – was dutifully covered in the mainstream press. That same week Amnesty International released Operation Cast Lead: 22 Days of Death and Destruction, a detailed and gruesome report of the various war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Israeli state against Gaza’s civilian population. It received virtually no mainstream media attention, but grassroots media, civil society and academia have refused to let the issue go.

The offensive on Gaza will continue to affect Israel’s brand. As the American political scientist and coauthor of The Israel Lobby Stephen Walt wrote after Gaza: “The way a country regains the world’s admiration in the aftermath of misconduct is to stop doing it, admit it was wrong, express regret and make it clear that it won’t happen again. Restoring Israel’s image in the West isn’t a matter of spin or PR or ‘re-branding’; it’s a matter of abandoning the policies that have cost it the sympathy it once enjoyed. It’s really just about that simple.” The dissonance between Israel’s re-branding campaign and its consistently negative image shows that contemporary reality matters. Mr. Gissin isn’t convinced. When pressed on Anholt and Walt’s emphasis on concrete action, he referred to Israel’s negative brand not as a reflection of reality but as the result of propaganda: “Israel is not a regular brand in the sense that there is an active and powerful worldwide campaign aimed at hurting Israel’s image. Few countries or places need to cope with such an environment, and taking [these] statements at face value in regard to Israel is missing the bigger picture.” Given Israel’s place behind Iran on the NBI, it would seem that the bigger picture of the world’s largest, most enduring refugee population and a destructive 42-year occupation is exactly what shapes the Israeli brand.

Our political opinion may now be the target of the same sophisticated marketing techniques that produced corn-fueled obesity and SUVs, but the difference is that nation-states are irreducible past their human components: our perception matters. Sixty-plus years of co-opting social and behavioral psychology to ram products down our collective throat have yet to overwhelm our political or moral compasses. We are still able to judge nation-states by their deeds rather than by their spin.

Pharmaceutical Marketing