"Shared Values" A Bust
U.S. Suspends TV Ad Campaign Aimed at Winning Over Muslims

By Vanessa O'Connell
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

The U.S. government is abandoning a high-profile television campaign, backed by President Bush and aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the world's Muslim and Arab populations, after meeting stiff resistance from some crucial allied nations.

The much-ballyhooed advertising drive, known as "Shared Values," was developed by Charlotte Beers, a Madison Avenue veteran who is now a State Department official, and was the most controversial element of an effort to promote a positive image of the U.S. in parts of the globe where American interests and culture are frequently under attack.

The initial series of television spots had its debut in October and was broadcast for five weeks in several countries, including Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation. They feature five Muslims who live in the U.S.: a baker, a journalism student, a schoolteacher, a paramedic and a public official. In documentary-style footage created by McCann-Erickson Worldgroup, a unit of Interpublic Group, each describes a social tolerance of his or her background and faith. "I have co-workers who are Jewish, who are Christian, Catholic, Hindu even," says Farooq Muhammad, clad in his New York paramedic uniform, in one spot. "I have never gotten disrespect because I am a Muslim."

The effort immediately sparked controversy. Egypt informally warned U.S. officials that it wouldn't put messages from other governments on its airwaves. Cairo's ambassador didn't return calls seeking comment Wednesday. The Lebanese ambassador to the U.S., Farid Abboud, said, "We shouldn't run messages on behalf of other governments." A spokesman for the Jordanian embassy said the spots didn't run in Jordan, which has three channels, all government-owned.

The U.S. also focused on getting play for the ads on private and government media in other nations, such as Pakistan, Malaysia and Kuwait, and via pan-Arab broadcasters such as the Middle East Broadcasting Centre, an Arabic satellite-TV station based in Dubai. The spots went on the air starting Oct. 28 in most countries and ran through Dec. 10, to coincide with Ramadan, a Muslim holy period.

Explaining the decision to suspend the ads, State Department officials said the U.S. recently decided to emphasize public relations rather than TV and print ads in Muslim countries with substantial anti-American sentiment. "The television, print and radio spots are down right now," one official said. "We are looking at where we are going next with the effort."

Calls to Ms. Beers's office were referred to the State Department press office.

The U.S. budgeted about $15 million for the entire effort, spearheaded by Ms. Beers, who is currently undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Thus far, the U.S. has spent about $7.5 million. About $5 million of that sum was used to buy media time for the "Shared Values" spots. The commercials were one and two minutes long.

The State Department tied the initial batch of ads to Ramadan in the hopes of striking a chord with the people in the Arab nations it hoped to reach. The U.S. hasn't specified an end date for its overall effort and continues to work with the McCann-Erickson agency, though there currently aren't any new spots in the works.

State Department officials noted that the campaign can in theory continue until the funds run out. But department officials are currently working with McCann-Erickson to determine what impact -- if any -- the campaign may have had and to figure out what form the future efforts will take. One idea is to begin moving the ads into other countries where there are large numbers of Muslims, including the Philippines, Morocco and some of the former Soviet republics. Already, some elements of the initial campaign have appeared outside of the target market, airing in some African nations and in certain parts of Europe.

In addition to the criticism leveled by some Muslim nations, the spots were faulted at home, too. "The ads were extremely poor," says Youssef Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank based in New York. "It was like this was the 1930s and the government was running commercials showing happy blacks in America. It is the policy itself we have to explain. You have to grab the bull by the horn, and the bull is 'Hey, here's our policy and there are good reasons for it,' instead of saying, 'Gee, there are a lot of happy Muslim people here.' "

"The real question on the 'Shared Values' campaign is whether it does more good than harm," says Steve Hayden, vice chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, a McCann rival and unit of WPP Group PLC. "My premise was that any effort to address ordinary people that have been ignored too long is worthy. But Islamic opinion is influenced more by what the U.S. does than anything it can say."

Those involved with the ads respond that the idea behind them was simply to show there isn't an anti-Muslim movement by the American public. "These ads were intended to reach the masses and go to everyday people," a State Department official said.

Officials at the department originally floated the idea of buying time on al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabic satellite news channel, but ultimately decided it was too expensive. The network sells a one-minute commercial during prime time for about $10,000. That's considerably less than the rate charged by U.S. TV networks, where one 30-second commercial on a popular program such as "Friends," on General Electric Co.'s NBC, costs about $400,000.

Abdul-Raouf Hammuda, a Toledo, Ohio, bakery owner, who appeared in some spots, said he was paid for his role in the campaign. Cameramen followed him and his family for 10 days to come up with the footage for the TV spots. More recently, he and his wife visited Lebanon on a four-day speaking tour at U.S. expense. "The reaction varied from those who were supportive to the idea of building this campaign to others who were suspicious and skeptical that life for Muslims in America was really all that good," said Mr. Hammuda, who is 45 years old.

Officials at the State Department say that while they are rethinking the television strategy, they will continue to use the Internet to reach Muslims overseas through opendialogue.org (www.opendialogue.org), a site created by the U.S. to support the effort. Thus far, visitors to the site have ordered 5,000 copies of "Muslim Life in America," a marketing booklet created for the "Shared Values" effort, according to a spokeswoman for the State Department.

"You try to develop a multidimensional approach to this, and TV is one part of that," Philip Reeker, the deputy spokesman of the State Department said. "This particular phase started in a certain group of countries. The paid run is now over."

The move to get the U.S. messages on television airwaves in the Muslim and Arab world comes just as Arab nations are gearing up their own spin. Though none have yet broadcast high-profile political commercials on U.S. television, information ministers of several Arab nations are working to launch an English-language channel that could be seen in the U.S.

In Indonesia, the U.S. television spots ran for five weeks on five leading private stations, according to a U.S. embassy spokesperson in Jakarta. Complementary radio commercials aired on 50 stations nationwide, and a print advertising campaign ran in both mainstream and Islam-oriented magazines. "Indonesia is a moderate, open society and there's a thirst for information," says Ralph Boyce, the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, who helped to launch the campaign. He adds that Indonesians were particularly interested in a television commercial that featured an Indonesian journalism student at the University of Missouri.

-- Sadanand Dhume contributed to this article.