My quotidian day of branding and re-branding conversations was interrupted yesterday afternoon by a story headlined "Bush to Ask for TARP; Obama to 'Re-Brand It.'"
It's comforting -- and not surprising -- that the president-elect recognizes that the government's marketing skills have been FEMA-like, at best.
Start with the vile acronym; didn't anyone consider that TARP is short for tarpaulin, the plastic sheeting that covered roofs and bodies in New Orleans? Great idea: name your program after a symbol of failure.
Obama grasps the way that the embroidery of strategy, rhetoric and packaging can make a sale to the American people. He did it for his own brand, and if anyone can turn around our national nausea at the lack of accountability and continuing enrichment of the financial goons who got us into this, it's him.
But as we are fond of saying from the ergonomic comfort of our Aeron cheers, re-branding TARP isn't just the sizzle, it's the steak. So here's what Obama should do to create a Peter Lugar-worthy re-branding:
Obviously, dump the "bail-out" language. People like Bernie Madoff, or your DWI brother-in-law get bailed out. Rescue plan isn't right, either. Both terms are perfect comedic set-ups, punch-line grist for Leno and Letterman as they joke about the poor schnook down the street -- or most recently the wounded porn industry -- who needs a bail-out of their own.
Essential to the re-branding, beyond the syntax, is shifting the focus from specific companies or industries -- or God forbid, luxuriating CEOs -- getting hauled out of their own wreckage.
That was a huge problem with TARP from a marketing perspective; it's now seen as break-the-glass, red-box emergency scam cooked up by Paulson and Bernanke to save the rich.
Americans are a practical people. We don't buy two-step arguments -- provide liquidity to Goldman, Merrill, AIG, and their confreres -- and then they'll in turn lend to you. And theory and complexity aside, it's an argument that bombed in practice.
So given where we are, Obama has to create a new master narrative -- that there is a desperate and immediate need to save jobs and protect families from further pain and hurt. That's what this second tranche, this $350 billion, is going to do.
He's going to use the funds to stave off foreclosures, to keep small business above water by investing directly, rather than the first approach: dumping the money -- with no accountability -- into the financial cesspool, and hoping that fresh liquidity comes spinning out.
That's why Obama should rebrand TARP as the Family Asset Investment Response -- or FAIR. Imagine: every headline, every broadcaster reference to the program will reinforce its fundamental American equity and justice.
To deconstruct:
• Family, for the obvious reasons. There are few words as resonant and instantly positive in our vernacular.
• Asset, because the federal government is taking a bold step to allow Americans to preserve and recover their assets. And that's assets taken in the largest sense: homes, jobs, retirement savings.
• Investment, because the government isn't giving away money, but is making an investment in the future.
• And response, because it's driven by circumstance and not philosophy. Plus it encodes echoes of the New Deal.
The acronym has rhetorical legs. It's a "Fair" program because it's going directly to the pain. It's not perfect, it's inevitably going to reward some people who probably don't deserve it in the interests of throwing a lifeline to those who do. But is there a choice? Americans are, above all, fair-minded people. Our judicial system is based on the lesser evil of allowing the guilty to elide punishment, so the innocent are not unfairly tossed into the slammer.
Obama needs to deal directly with this reality. He will do his best, he will struggle every day with the responsibility of making sure that this $350 million doesn't end up bedeviled by the kind of sordid squandering that historically afflicts rapidly distributed Federal funding. But he expects that the greedy and the guilty will end up with a small piece of it.
Then there's the "transparency" promise Obama has made. He's talked about using the Internet as a national window of visibility into the circulatory system of this $350 million. Yes, we need a website that shows how much money is flowing to each company, and even where it's going.
And yes, it needs all the cool functionality the web is capable of, like a Google maps mash-up so you can see which parts of the country are getting the most money, down to the zip code level. Plus a ticker, like that now-trumped National Debt Clock that shows how much is being spent in real time.
That's fine, but that's not enough. Americans are clamoring for blood. If there's still a chance to create pain for the guilty, even humiliate them, let's go for it. And in the end, what can we do to the corporate mandarins that's as humiliating as showing up for unemployment, or telling your kids to pack up their stuffed animals because they're moving next week?
So it's only fair that fair.gov doesn't just show us where the money is going, but also strips bare the companies getting the dough. For example, you should be able to go to the site and find a drop-down menu of every single company that's gotten any Federal money.
For each company that has its hand in the people's trough we should be able to look at a naked picture of their best-comped 50. We peer into their base salary, their bonuses, and their perks (like pre-paid insurance, housing and entertainment allowances).
We also want to be able to see every dinner they charge to the company -- who it was with, and what the purpose was -- just like we're approving their expense reports. After all, we're the ones actually paying for them.
Although this might seem petty and de minimis, it hits home on the most visceral level. Which is where all the most successful re-brandings start -- and eventually finish.