January 30, 2011
An hour after Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian journalist, appealed to CNN to “use the words revolt, uprising and revolution rather than chaos and unrest,” the broadcaster changed its onscreen headline from “CHAOS IN EGYPT” to “UPRISING IN EGYPT”.
The question that springs to mind: how important are labels to the branding of conflict?
How do labels affect perception?
Labels are about emotions. Emotions are often a malleable wall of thoughts and ideas that are influenced by facts, opinions, and PR.
MarketingHub.me talked to Ahmad Humeid, Jordanian expert on branding, who shared his opinion on the importance of labels:
“Labels are extremely important for Western audiences,” Humeid said. “They are detached from the events happening in our region and many do not have sufficient backgrounds to understand the event in question. For us here in the Arab world, all our attention is directed toward Egypt as it is so close to home, and because we strongly relate to the Egyptian people; so we can see beyond the labels.”
Yet Humeid goes on to say that labels are not as important today as they were before the days of social media.
“With social media there is an overwhelming amount of 'unlabeling' taking place," he said. "Media consumers no longer need an established news company like CNN that takes an event and packages it in a certain light. As the audience, you can see a tweet from a person on the street, directly relaying what he or she is seeing, and you can label it however you want in your mind as a consumer. The problem with mass consumption, whether it is a label on a cereal box or through mass media, is that you are consuming a brand like a popular broadcaster such as CNN, as opposed to cold, hard facts.”
The change of label on CNN from “CHAOS IN EGYPT” to “UPRISING IN EGYPT” is indeed very significant, as it will shape the perceptions of many of the channel's viewers.
Consumers have more access to ideas
Is labeling as effective when the target audience is more involved, as is the case with other Arabs? It is probably not. Exposure to new media channels on the Internet, and more importantly, exposure to ideas, is creating subcultures and a diverse array of opinion.
Humeid believes that it is not as much about branding as it is about content, and what people are exposed to.
“Now we are seeing the generation that grew up with more access to media,” he said. “Whether it is satellite channels or YouTube, growing up and taking the streets, they're getting exposed to other ideas.”
Labels are important when it comes to influencing perceptions. Their effect is integrated into the consumer's repertoire of ideas and thoughts, which further serves to skew facts or affect opinion.
Labels have yet to show how they affect the Egyptian revolution.
What do you think? How important are labels?
If we can look beyond the branded news of CNN, then we can easily use the information we're getting as a fact or at least as a concept of what's happening. Like, wven when they used the phrase "Chaos in Egypt" we understood that there is an uproar happening in the streets. But when we rely on personalised news channel such as Twitter or Facebook, then we end up with the news that I got an hour ago saying: "Israeli army planes are providing the Egyptian army with tear gas that is banned of use internationally". Of course, Twitter and facebook were in fact good tools to broadcast the happenings, but how can we ever filter them?
What I'm trying to say is, true that the news channel lost thier charm as it was 10 years ago, but they still use good standards in reporting the news. While sometimes twitter or facebook or any other social media channel is distorting the truth, making it convenient to us arabs to believe any conspiracy-israeli-dragons-superman-related theories that adjust to our mentality. Alot of people never ask how & why, they only care about telling the stories that they hear to their communities and get into a big argument defending it saying that it came from an "authentic source".
This line says it all "Emotions are often a malleable wall of thoughts and ideas that are influenced by facts, opinions, and PR."
Ahmad has a really sharp view on this, thanks for sharing.
"It's not what you say, it's how you say it" - this describes basic communication and is not limited to branding/marketing. Positioning what is happening in Egypt as Chaos has a negative connotation associated with it. Branding it as an Uprise reflects a movement with a purpose - a call to action.
Without dwelling in politics, but the domino effect in the MENA region (Tunis, Egypt, and a call for a similar uprise in Syria, etc ...) does not reflect chaos but an uprise. So in short, I strongly believe that branding is quite important, specially in situations such as this. Chaos is haphazard and has no followers, and uprise certainly does!
thank you for such an interesting perspective on such tragic events.
I don't personally don't think it;s appropriate to be discussing this issue form a branding perspective right now, people are suffering and dying right now. Maybe give the people a chance to recover before turning it into a marketing topic.
My 2 cents
Thank you for the share Ruba, an interesting perspective indeed. The basics of branding constitute that a brand is built over time with a consistent message and consistent performance of activity or products that build the brand, in that sense a label can be the initial attention graber, and true the emotional effect of the lable is of value, however the lbel becomes worthless as perception is built over performance, and if the news is conflicting, the ultimate result might complete disregard of the news and "brand" all together!
Thanks for sharing! I got goose bumps thinking how people on the streets are transmitting the truth via the net.... It's great to have various point of views to real events and happenings.
Nur,
People die everyday and suffer for much less of a reason, the cost of revolution is always blood and martyrs which has to be accepted. There is no harm in discussing it anyway and taking lessns from it!
a very good and live topic to learn lessons from , But ,
Is this about branding. I am afraid sometimes that we are so much caught by marketing and advertising catchy phrases that we want to fix any situation or context to that catchy phrase or term. Branding is difinitly one of the most used terms in Marketing and appeals so much to marketers as business generator with clients, but again It is not necessarily the term that fit all situations. If we want to talk about Branding , i think we should talk about Aljazeera Network as a very impressive Branind success stories that can be claimed as an arabic global brand that worked with arabic minds and without need for western Advertising Agencies ! I Believe it is a very impressive success story that all marketers can learn lesson from.
On the other hand and regarding the labels you mentioned in your article , i think it comes more suitable to CRISIS Managment in a Public Relations context.
CNN, SkyNews, BBC all had different approaches and they followed without a doubt their political agenda and i can challenge any of them who claim impartiality in their cover for the events.
How this harm their brand in the Middle east , I say it will be weakining their already week market position in the middle east markets.
The worst failure in this crisis was the Egyptian TV brand which was damaged to every bit of it and they showed zero credibility.
How long in the middle east can state-owned media keep their brand , I think their status -quoe is not sustainable.
How can Egypt get back their buitl tourism branding , many things to monitor and learn form but it will take time and will depend a lot on the political stability regardless of any marketing effor done.
I believe sometime Marketing can not work , especially in sugh huge political events and revolutions but it can be needed once things get stable and for that Marketers need to understand poeople views of events if they want their marketing efforts to succeeed.
at the end , All My RESPECT for the great Egyptian and Tunisian people and I am monitoring anxiously how things in middle east are changing including the marketing community.