brandchannel.com | Brand America

With any product, the brand promise is crucial for longevity. The brand is the personality, the story, the aspirations of the product. Watching the way the Republicans have decimated the American brand in the past 10 years, I’ve been wondering when someone would notice the decline of America in terms of its perceived brand.

I’ve always said that a company is no better than the integrity and values the CEO spreads to the rest of the company – witness the difference between Microsoft and Apple, both with hothead leaders, but only one with a strong sense of values. The same applies to the US – the CEO and his cronies are spreading hollow values and a poor attitude that is infecting everything in America. And the rest of the world feels it.

Enough about my thoughts. Here’s a great article about Brand America.

The tale of how Brand America was built is a truly heroic one. And it must be said that this is a brand that has been managed, for the most part, with honor and integrity, or at least with the best intentions, as well as skill, inventiveness, vigor, consistency and passion, for a quarter of a millennium.

All the more pity, then, that the last few years have seen such a decline in the passion, consistency, vigor, inventiveness, skill, integrity and honor with which it has been managed. From the dismantling of the United States Information Agency to the recent failure of the "Shared Values" public diplomacy initiative, America simply seems to have lost its extraordinary talent for enlightened and effective self-promotion.
[…]
America needs to rediscover its brand instinct, and live by the
principles that most American companies never forgot: clarity and
firmness of purpose and of message; sensitivity to the needs of
different audiences around the world; a simple and attractive
positioning; transparent and ethical behavior in the organization as
well as in the products; coordination between the stakeholders.

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