The Marketing of Desert Shield : Will Business Blitz Turn Gulf Crisis Into a PR Coup?
Coca-Cola and Pepsi each saturated the desert with 500,000 cans of soda. Frito-Lay chipped in 225,000 bags of Fritos and PACE Foods provided the dip--170 cases of picante hot sauce for those cool Arabian nights.
Back on the home front, Knott’s Berry Farm opened its gates to military families on Veteran’s Day; Freeze Frame photo studio in Santa Ana gave away beauty makeovers to servicemen’s wives; and Ridgeway Videos in Tustin promises half off on movie rentals to those left behind.
From huge corporations to mom-and-pop stores, American businesses are suiting up for the biggest military-based public relations blitz in half a century.
The target is Operation Desert Shield, the deployment since August of some 240,000 U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia. It has provided the business world with an opportunity to polish its public image while lending encouragement to homesick soldiers and the families who miss them.
“We call that ‘money in the bank’ in (public relations)--every time you do something good for society, you get back some measure of public support,” said Bob Rayfield, professor of communications at Cal State Fullerton. “Over the years, you accumulate a positive feeling about your company.”
Desert Shield has attracted a 21-gun salute from American businesses for two reasons, marketing experts say. First, the military operation--taken against a clearly defined aggressor, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein--thus far enjoys wide public support, as did World War II. Second, the standoff has yet to erupt into a battle and body counts, as did Vietnam.
“You don’t want to be seen as supporting an unpopular war,” said Jack Trout, president of Trout and Ries, a top marketing firm based in Greenwich, Conn.
“This conflict is terrific: Everyone is looking good in their fatigues, drinking Gatorade, just kind of milling around. But if the shooting starts, it might be a different story. When something becomes controversial, advertisers run in the other direction.”
The marketing of war has changed over the past 50 years. World War II saw so many products claiming tenuous connections to the greater cause that one cosmetics manufacturer drolly counterattacked: “It won’t build morale, it won’t preserve our way of life. All this lipstick will do is make you look prettier.”
Companies now steer away from directly hyping themselves on the coattails of a soldier’s uniform.
Instead, they are taking an indirect offensive--barraging Operation Desert Shield troops and their families with gifts while announcing the good deeds in press releases and advertisements.
Montgomery Ward has shipped hundreds of VCRs and television sets to Saudi Arabia so that service personnel can exchange videotaped messages with their families. AT&T; has sacrificed millions of dollars in telephone calls and faxes. Anheuser-Busch gave 22,000 cases of non-alcoholic beer.
“There is nothing comparable in our history to these kinds of donations,” said Lt. Col. Henry Wyatt, public affairs officer for the Defense Logistics Agency--a branch of the Defense Department assigned to accept Desert Shield donations and arrange their deliveries.
The agency has received more than 4,000 telephone calls from businesses and individuals wishing to make donations to the troops. A donor list most recently updated on Nov. 6 comprises some 500 companies and organizations, which have contributed everything from sardines (50,000 cans) to boomerangs (1,000).
Then there are 100,000 sunglasses, 3,250 portions of dehydrated ice cream, 40,000 Kodak disposable cameras, 50,000 almanacs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Universal Gym together gave 10,000 pounds of weight equipment; Life Fitness Inc. of Irvine sent 20 exercise machines.
“An outpouring of support like this hasn’t happened since World War II,” said Wyatt, who served in Vietnam. “I’m not a clinical psychologist, so I can’t analyze the country’s thinking on this one. Some are probably doing it (making donations) for publicity, some are doing it to do good. Whichever, I know that it definitely would boost my morale if I were (stationed in Saudi Arabia).”
Although companies have refrained from boldly positioning their products in a heroic role, some “are blatantly using the crisis for marketing purposes,” said Dan Koeppel, senior writer for Adweek’s Marketing Week magazine. “They’re being pretty aggressive about letting people know what they have done for our boys overseas.”
And should the troops “return victoriously,” with few fatalities and Kuwait restored, Koeppel speculated that companies will begin to advertise openly their presense in Saudi Arabia. “We’ll see tons of pictures of soldiers eating and drinking all kinds of stuff,” he said.
“Right now, they can’t afford to invest a lot of money in making advertisements with the Pepsi Generation drinking sodas in the desert, because the next day we might have teen-age boys being splattered across that desert,” Koeppel added. “But I guarantee you, advertisers are collecting film footage. I hate to say it, but they’re not (donating products) only for charity.”
Trout concurred: “It would be a great story to have in the can--we were there with the boys when they were standing guard in the desert.”
A spokesperson for Pepsi-Cola Co. said that she is unaware of any such filming for future commercials. “We have not undertaken publicity to capitalize on what is an unfortunate situation for many people,” said Leigh Curtin. “Pepsi aided the troops simply because it’s the right thing to do.”
Polly Howes, manager of media relations for Coca-Cola Co., said that Coke also had altruistic motives in contributing half a million soft drinks. “Coca-Cola has a longstanding tradition of bringing its product to soldiers in the field, dating back to World War II,” she said.
The media, too, have jumped on the Desert Shield bandwagon. Radio stations mail tapes of drive-time programs to their hometown soldiers. Newspapers--including the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Dallas Morning News and the Orange County Register--regularly fax or ship editions to the troops.
Some companies already have come under fire for marketing the Persian Gulf crisis. Last September, Philip Morris U.S.A. distributed 2 million free Marlboros to service personnel in Saudi Arabia. A smaller cigarette maker, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., donated an undisclosed number of Kool Milds and Richlands.
Such acts of charity provoked Garry Trudeau’s witty wrath in his cartoon strip “Doonesbury,” and anti-smoking groups complained that the giveaways were a ploy to hook young soldiers.
“We sent 10,000 cartons of cigarettes at a time when there was no distribution system set up by the Army to supply the front line,” explained Les Zuke, director of communications for Philip Morris U.S.A. “Now the Army itself makes cigarettes available (for a charge).”
The tobacco company has continued its style of philanthropy through other means. Recently, it funded 80,000 “Marlboro Holiday Voice Cards”--10-second greetings from family members, recorded on computer chips at military bases throughout the country. “We never discuss dollar amounts for these types of activities,” Zuke said, “but I will tell you that postage alone cost 65 cents per card.”
Companies admit that staking out territory in the high-profile Middle East showdown makes for good business sense. But they insist that their original intent was to bolster troops and their families.
“Sometimes we become involved (in philanthropic deeds) as part of a huge strategic plan, and sometimes we become involved because it’s the right thing to do,” said AT&T; manager Rick Wallerstein of the company’s free fax service to military stationed in Saudi Arabia. “We felt that this would be a great way to bring soldiers closer to the families left behind.”
“A lot of what we do is for public image and to be a good community leader,” said Jane Reid, marketing director for Westminster Mall, which is holding a package drive. “Most definitely it’s beneficial for us to be in the public eye in a positive manner.”
Bryan Turner, manager of Ridgeway Videos--owned by his father, Robert Turner--said that the Tustin store has “signed up probably about 20 or 30 new customers” through their promotion touting discounts to military families.
“We circulated flyers to homes and apartments surrounding the bases,” Bryan Turner said. “It worked out well for us and it worked out well for them. But that’s not why we offered the discount--to get new customers. My father wanted to give a little support to these families. Some of them just had their income cut in half.”
Indeed, many Southern California families are weathering a drastic drop in household finances due to Desert Shield. “A lot of our Marines had second jobs, and their families lost that income,” observed Capt. Betsy Sweatt, public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro.
A Marine corporal with four years in the corps garners a monthly salary of only $1,078.80. “We welcome this outpouring of charity,” Sweatt said. “It gives the troops and their families the feeling that the American people are behind them--not to mention that they enjoy taking advantage of the donations.”
On a recent morning, a group of Marine wives certainly appeared to enjoy taking advantage of the free beauty makeovers and photo sessions at Freeze Frame studio in Santa Ana’s MainPlace Mall. “This is truly the nicest gift we’ve gotten,” said Chris Hull, whose husband is a helicopter pilot.
But even the wives realize that the massive support they and their husbands are receiving could hinge on Desert Shield’s public approval. “There hasn’t been any shooting yet,” Hull noted. “None of us want that to happen, but if it does, I hope the tide doesn’t turn against the troops in Saudi Arabia. I remember how lonely it was for servicemen during the Vietnam War.”
UCI English professor John Rowe worries that “with the best of intentions” corporate America may be inadvertently egging the country on to war.
“These companies are tacitly endorsing a foreign policy that has not yet been thoroughly discussed in Congress,” said Rowe, who teaches a class titled “The Vietnam War in American Culture.”
“It’s fueling a mindless patriotism that has gotten us into trouble in the past,” he said. “I’d rather see these young men and women come home safely than to see them lavished in consumer goods.”
Furthermore, marketing experts warned, too much of a good thing can backfire. “I can’t think of a better way for a company to destroy its image than to so much as appear to be commercializing the Middle East situation,” said Arnold Tucker, executive vice president of Carl Byoir and Associates, a large public relations firm based in New York.
“It’s tricky--you can’t look as though you are grandstanding,” said marketing consultant Trout. “The American public is pretty cynical these days. They might start to get a little suspicious about some of this stuff.”
In “While You Were Gone,” a 1946 book about the American home front during World War II, advertising pioneer Raymond Rubicam discussed the backlash against a proliferation of “brag ads” capitalizing on the military’s glory.
“What was offensive in peace was 10 times more so in war,” Rubicam wrote. He cited a bread manufacturer that “told the nation to slice its way to peace,” and an air-conditioning company that took credit for a torpedo hit on an enemy ship because part of the periscope was made in an air-conditioned building.
“As the war continued such advertisements were pilloried not only by servicemen, civilians and government officials, but increasingly by advertising men as well,” he said.
Forty-five years later, American troops drafted into the fragile Persian Gulf deadlock appreciate the business community’s enthusiastic support.
“I don’t think they care whether the donation came from a lady baking 300 cookies or Keebler’s baking 300,000 cookies,” said Capt. Sweatt. “That’s not what’s going through their minds: Is some company doing this for publicity’s sake? They’re just glad that they haven’t been forgotten by the people back home.”
