Managing the message means redefining the terms
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Do you remember when George W Bush's crack media team was charged with spreading his lofty message that "we will never accept anything other than complete victory"? Such was the Churchillian oratory that his speechwriters had him deliver to West Point graduates only very recently, in late May. Well now, on June 14 after his unannounced Baghdad trip, the President was determinedly reworking the definition of victory. During his Rose Garden press conference, just in case any of us thought victory might entail an end to violence in Iraq, he was out to lower expectations.
President Bush: "I'd say that if people say, 'Well, there's got to be no violence in order for this to be a successful experience', then it's not going to happen".
The Commander-in-Chief was reiterating a blunt message that his commander in Iraq, General George Casey, had already sent out. Going on TV to exult, albeit in a restrained soldierly way, over the air-strike killing of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the general was very careful to say: "You can't stop terrorist attacks completely".
That very unvarnished phrase arrested me when I first heard it, since this Administration's figureheads and spokespersons, whether civilian or military, are very well-trained in the way they handle media outlets (including the First Mouthpiece, who is is rigorously coached, believe it or not). I even wondered for a moment whether some overzealous soundbite editor had maybe cut the General off midstream. But he was speaking on the Bush-friendly airwaves of Fox News, and interviewer Chris Wallace left lots of airspace around his guest in which he could, if he wanted, qualify or massage his message. General Casey meant exactly what he said.
We are all evidently being softened up in advance of a much lowered bar being set for whatever this unprincipled White House finally judges are acceptable circumstances for a US withdrawal from the Iraqi mess.
All in all, it's so very different from the blustery media-management melee that aides set in motion when the Commander in Chief once before said something similar - though inadvertently, we were then told. It was during the run-up to the 2004 election, and Bush was on the road with Matt Lauer of NBC's Today program. As so often the President had been conflating the Iraq operation with his wider (and ludicrously labeled) entity, the "War on Terror", and he had specifically said "I don't think you can win it".
The White House correction machine required that the message "we are winning and we will win" should be re-asserted. Next day the Bush West Wing's favorite leakee, Bob Novak, obligingly wheeled out a huffing-and-puffing "clarification" of the President's position, saying that he had merely "mispoke" and he was "seemingly absent-minded". (It was another case, incidentally, of "with friends like these ...". Novak also acknowledged that while "at his best, Bush is tightly disciplined in giving answers that have been carefully prepared", it was undeniable that "George W Bush is no John F Kennedy who can nonchalantly respond to reporters' questions".)
On that same day, Rush Limbaugh also did his bit. He, er, rushed to give Bush airtime on rightwing talk radio for adjusting the record. "Listen," said the Chief Executive, "I should have made my point more clear about what I meant".
Maybe, by June 14th in the White House Rose Garden, Bush has finally gotten to the point of making his point more clear about what he means. "Victory", quite simply now, does not mean an end to terrorist violence.
FUGGEDABOUT 1-MINUTE MANAGERS. TRY 1-SECOND SELLERS!
"Blinks". That's a very good name, given to an innovation from Madison Avenue. Advertisements that last precisely one second.
It sounds like the insane result of some communicator's fevered imagination - like maybe my own, started in that low pitch of my despair for the broadcasting industry, when I heard during the 2000 US Presidential election that the average length of news soundbites had fallen to just eight seconds.
But no, it's for real. Clear Channel, America's largest operator of radio stations, is now seriously discussing the idea of one-second radio spots with marketers and media buyers. The ultra-short format could, they say, be used between music tracks - for instance by McDonalds (playing just part of its "I'm lovin' it" jingle), by Intel (playing its infamous chime) or by NBC (ringing out its pompous bells).
Jim Cook is Clear Channel's Vice-President (Creative) - doesn't the advertising industry lay some terrible titles on its people? It is Cook who has had the task of presenting this idea to the world, describing it as a way "to find new uses of radio for advertisers who are continually asking us to demonstrate that our medium can successfully extend brands, can successfully reach the consumer with touchpoints that are new and surprising".
New? Well, perhaps. And surprising? Not very. I for one fully expect the brevity of this format might appeal to MP3 file-purveyors, and it can of course be dropped into many a piece of online audio or video. However, "blink" in front of your iPod, cellphone, laptop or desktop, and you might miss something.