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FOLLOW-UP
Charlotte Beers goes bye-bye
BY RICHARD BYRNE

It’s " hush, hush, sweet Charlotte " time at the State Department this week. On Monday, Charlotte Beers — the former advertising maven who was hired by the US government to sell Brand America to the Muslim world (see " Brand America, " News and Features, February 14) — announced that she is resigning her post as the State Department’s under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters that Beers was resigning for " health reasons. "

The hiring of Beers, a crack ad executive who resuscitated the flagging Uncle Ben’s brand of rice, was controversial from the start. The idea that American public diplomacy — usually tended by career diplomats who emphasize cultural exchange and act as information centers — needed a shot of Madison Avenue pizzazz was mocked in media circles and quietly bemoaned within the State Department.

Though positive results ultimately change minds, that never happened in this case. Beers failed to get the " product " to much of her target audience in the Muslim world, and America’s public image withered worldwide during her tenure. The centerpiece of Beers’s program was a series of television commercials about Muslim life in America called the " Shared Values " campaign. These ads were rejected by the governments of many target countries (including Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon) as " propaganda " — and, according to published reports, the subject of contempt and disbelief in places where they were shown.

In many respects, however, the decline of America’s public image can’t be laid at the feet of Beers and her failed campaign. American public diplomacy is swimming furiously upstream against a relentless tide of unilateralism coming from the Bush administration and the US Congress. Beers’s resignation — and the continuing drop in America’s world standing — proves that even the slickest and showiest ad can’t sell the message the Bush administration is peddling, which is: " The World Doesn’t Matter. "

Issue Date: March 6 - 13, 2003
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