Brand ISIS: Interactions of the Tangible and Intangible Environments

Abstract

This article investigates how the infamous terrorist organization Islamic State (ISIS) uses branding and political marketing as means to increase their intangible value and assets in order to influence their tangible (operational) capacities. In order to investigate the logic of a terrorist organization as a political actor a perspective of political communication is applied as a means to understand more clearly the propaganda of the word and the propaganda of the deed. A systematic communication approach is used to raise awareness of the ISIS brand in order to differentiate the organization and to create a greater sense of credibility and authenticity in an increasingly crowded marketplace of terrorist organizations seeking for attention, support, and fear. Aspects of political marketing are used in order to create sets of relationships of attraction and avoidance with different target audiences. The 15 issues of the magazine Dabiq are examined and analyzed within this approach. However, intangible communication and tangible realities do affect each other. This is evident when there is a swing from military victories to military defeats, which impacts on the quality and quantity of communicational materials produced by ISIS.

Political Marketing in a Changing World: Global, National and Regional Dimensions

“…For example, Baines and O'Shaughnessy's (2014) special issue in the Journal of Political Marketing that examines the relationship and use of propaganda and contemporary political marketing in a globally marketed political environment. There are also, increasingly, attempts to understand the role and actions of non-state actors that include notorious terrorist organizations and their attempts to create relationships with global publics (Simons 2018). Political marketing is still a young academic discipline and a professional practice, which is evolving rapidly in a transforming global political landscape that both imitates and innovates within the fields of political communication in order to try and gain that key and critical advantage over an opponent.…”

Jihadi Audiovisuality and its Entanglements

“…Across these categories, two further, likewise interlinked functional or objective dimensions can be discriminated: (1) the ideational-ideological conveyance of world-view and overarching historical and political goals and objects; and (2) the self-marketing as an individual brand that competes with other (jihadist) actors (Simons 2018;Rogers 2018). We will not discuss these functional dimensions separately or explicitly.…”

Digital Communication Disrupting Hegemonic Power in Global Geopolitics

“…Controversial as it is, the example of Islamic State's (IS) communications not only offered the negative and hateful communications in challenging the Western global order, they also included positive messages. These concerned projecting their utopian vision of society and offering the audience their "opportunity" to help build that vision and be part of an inclusive and meaningful project (Simons, 2018). The soft power of the IS message was to offer hope, meaning and to be part of a community when they lacked these aspects of higher meaning in their life, even if this was an illusion, it resonated to a segment of different publics.…”