Advertising the monetary ‘man

Rise of the fantastic integrated marketing communications, extended commercial gaps between television programs and the glowing billboard skins have given the corporate industry a whole new branch to diverge into; advertising. It is argued today that international politics, diplomacy, political negotiations, foreign aid decisions, tourism, foreign direct investments and even fashion trends are today depending on how a country “advertises” itself. In a strict comparison, Pakistan has been blamed to advertise itself intentionally as a state in dire need of foreign help in order to counter terrorism. Yet the extra “attention” given to Pakistan regarding this issue is due to certain allegations. Let’s look at how this phenomenon has risen and that what confidence level does this hypothesis maintain.
The weapon of mass attraction: Advertising has taken the world by a storm. So much so that what is not advertised really isn’t authentic these days. Not only has it catastrophically affected the personal selling and sales industry of the country but also has augmented tremendously, the trust of the general public in brands and ventures that speak up about their offers and products. Since the “Terminator” movie series, the masses have speculated technology taking over and enslaving the human race yet sadly no movie was ever made about how humans were going to use technology to conveniently enslave other humans. The easiest of technologies was hence advertising and marketing. The power of this medium is such that in year 2010, the world has spent over $500 billion in advertising alone. This was because two thirds of the world’s Internet population now visits a social network or a blog site weekly. More than 220 million people visit the top 25 social networks each month. Facebook has over 500 million active users. The time spent visiting Social media websites now exceeds time spent emailing. 52 per cent of people who find news online forward it on through social networks, email, or posts. 59 per cent of adults polled; state that they use their cell phone to remain connected with their social network.
Advertising as bait: As far as advertising goes, a known fact is the amount of gigantic revenues which have been earned by some versus the plummeting failures which have seen many being bankrupted. However every few months, there rises a creative genius who formulates a magnificent idea to lure people into a brilliantly marketed manhole. Even the developed, educated and aware market of the United States has seen more of these scams than most countries, examples of which range from extremely detrimental for the entire economy to even comic displays of attracting the masses into attractive and appealing quick sands. The best of the examples that comes to mind is the Insurance of the Lord. This ingenious idea went ahead claiming to be running a “low cost Christian insurance company” which is the insurance of the lord. Later on many realised that they weren’t even covered with proper insurance. Many others were simply denied any sort of return on their losses. The “Christian low-cost” company claimed that the insurance of the Lord doesn’t need to abide by the ordinary citizen laws. Not far away from us, the Crescent Standard Investment Bank Limited (CSIBL) showed that the bank circulated “un-approved and un-audited” annual accounts for the year ended December 31, 2005 to its shareholders and that too after eight and a half months. The accounts showed a loss of Rs2,118,546,000 or loss per share (Rs16.85) which means the entire equity stands eroded and the share value is a negative Rs6.85 per share. The business of E-commerce is not safe from these scams either. Given its clandestine nature, click fraud in E-commerce is difficult to track, so statistics must be taken with a grain of salt. Click Forensics claimed in 2009 that the rate was 12.7 per cent, while, in the first three months of 2010 USA Today stated that anywhere from 17 per cent to 29 per cent of all online clicks were fraudulent. These are just some examples of how the advertising attracted some great finances into one great manhole.
Pakistan, advertiser of a financial manhole? In the recent 5-7 years Pakistan has been advertised as a terrorist state. A country where there is not only presence of terrorist groups but active terrorist groups which have been involved in local and even international terrorist attacks. Pakistan has repeatedly been advertised as the country where terrorist organisations are the most active. Recently a one hour featured program was aired on a private television network that only highlighted how in the past ten years, terrorist activities and terrorists themselves have been proven to originate from within the geographical boundaries of Pakistan. The war on terrorism hence is greatly focused in this country. Million of United States dollars have flown in the country to help the armed forces of the country in eliminating all terrorism from the country. The advertising hence has helped Pakistan inform the world of how much help is needed from the participants in the war on terrorism. Advertising has hence also helped Pakistan make a great attempt to eradicate and eliminate terrorism from the country and hence make the world a safer place to live in. However the international community is now growing skeptical on this advertising strategy. Authors like Lawrence Wright and the editor of Business insider’s “politix” page have out rightly mentioned that Pakistan’s version of war on terrorism is nothing more than just a humungous monetary manhole which is advertised strategically and effectively. This mentality has started to blame Pakistan that all Pakistan is doing is making Al-Qaeda run around and not capturing or eliminating them. The reason behind this allegation as expounded upon is that if Pakistan uses these millions of dollars worth of American aid, they would have easily eliminated a major chunk of terrorism from the country yet, Pakistan’s priority is inflowing American dollars and not a terrorism free country. John Ellis states that “…after 9/11, they (Pakistan) immediately aligned with the United States to defeat Al Qaeda, knowing that as long as the war was “hot,” the US aid money would continue to flow. A year became two years, two years became a decade. Pakistan’s military (and Pakistan’s economy) became addicted to US aid”. So now the American community has started to blame Pakistan as an advertiser of a monetary manhole. Pakistan advertises terrorism; foreign aid flows yet never actually gets to be spent on military operations entirely. Where does the money go then? Those blaming it on Pakistan say that the weak economy of Pakistan is now dependant on these American dollars and that Pakistan cannot survive without them.
The death of Osama bin Laden, a change in the advertising strategy? A recent operation in Pakistan by the United States military has claimed to have killed the most wanted terrorist in the world, Osama bin Laden. The death of bin Laden has marked a huge blow to the terrorist networks around the world. Some groups in the U.S. have claimed that now Pakistan is in a weaker position to demand more and more U.S. aid to counter terrorism. Many now believe that a new move shall be expected by Pakistan in order to keep the monetary inflow going. John Ellis predicts that it’s the nuclear card that’s going to be played. In certain circles of America, it is being discussed that Pakistan are now going to delineate a threat to its nuclear facilities. Pakistan would show a clear and present danger to its nuclear war heads and hence more and more U.S. aid would have to flow in. In other words it is being believed that Pakistan is nothing more a U.S. ally than a monetary manhole which it advertises to perfection. 11th September 2001, the biggest terrorist attack ever perpetrated on the soil of the United States of America followed by the war on terrorism, excessive terrorism, billions of dollars spent, millions of dollars gone to waste. Pakistan became a strong ally in the war on terrorism and years later with millions of dollars and thousands of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians dead, Pakistan is now being alleged to be advertising all if this to keep on getting more and more. We have discussed how big advertising is. We have not and might just not discuss as to what confidence level this hypothesis possesses. It happens all around us through small and big businesses and individuals who have almost lost all ideas of rationality. A few questions that need to be asked would begin by asking ourselves if we are doing it as a nation. More importantly we need to ask ourselves that if we are not doing this as a nation and still have to bear the brunt of a backlash from the international community, is it all worth it?

The writer is business student at the Lahore school of economics and organisational behavioral analyst