[governance] ICANN ads for "general public" (new subject header)

[Dan Krimm]

At 3:48 PM -0400 9/7/07, veni markovski wrote:
>At 12:31 9/7/2007  -0700, you wrote:
>>The ads must be well-designed and properly placed to be effective.  My call
>>is for effective ads, not just any old ads.
>
>Then Adam Peake should respond to this ;)

I'll be interested if he does.

The ad that he provided as an example appears to be incoherent when one
evaluates the combination of audience targeting, strategic messaging and
media placement (these considerations are completely interdependent and
cannot be separated from one another -- they must be evaluated as a
package).

Anyone who has ever worked at an authoritative level in the advertising or
marketing profession (like, say, at an ad agency in a creative/strategic
role, or perhaps in the publishing/ad-sales/marketing department of a print
periodical [not the editorial department], or perhaps even in a media
placement service) would recognize this example as systematically
unprofessional (as long as they were brought up to speed on the full
details of ICANN's activities and the specific goal of such an ad).



>>Bottom line: This example does not prove that there is no audience for
>>ICANN's work, only that the ad was flawed.
>
>You see, the problem is that you can't forever deny the fact that
>generally people are not interested in ICANN. This time you don't
>like the ads, next time you wouldn't like the newspapers they would
>be published at, etc., etc. While the simple fact, which Kieren
>mentioned will continue to be a fact.

This "simple fact" appears never to have been properly tested in the first
place, at least according to the evidence of the ad presented here.  If the
whole ad process is executed properly and professionally, then I won't
object if the response continues to be weak.  But as long as the ad process
continues to be similarly unprofessional, you really can't tell anything
about the audience response.  It's as if you spoke to someone
unintelligibly, and interpreted a non-response as stupidity or lack of
interest instead of your failure to communicate.

I will only complain when the process is flawed.  This example was clearly
flawed, and any competent advertising professionals can confirm it for you,
if they know enough about ICANN and the policy domain it genuinely
addresses (as opposed to the policy domain it clams to address officially).


The point I'm trying to make here is that if people knew that ICANN was
making policy that will affect things they care about deeply like freedom
of expression and personal privacy, etc., there would be a much higher
likelihood of expanding interest in ICANN's work to more of the general
public.

If ICANN continues to present itself as the "merely technical" organization
that it *should* be (as opposed to the more general public policy
organization that it increasingly *is*, as reflected in its tangible policy
ambitions) I predict you would get a much different response.  I mean, why
does a "technical" organization even have an "intellectual property
constituency" (in addition to the BC) in the first place?  If it has that,
how about adding a "personal privacy constituency" (in addition to the
NCUC) or a "free expression constituency" etc., etc.?

The core problem is that the official line ("we are only technical") is not
of interest to the general public, but the reality (*we make policy of a
more general nature*) is of much greater interest to the general public.

If ICANN were honest in explicitly describing the full range of public
policy that is deliberated under its roof, I predict it would get much more
attention from the general public.  In a strange way I suspect that ICANN
doesn't really want that attention, but if I am wrong and indeed it does
want that attention it has not been able to get past its erroneous self
image to present itself properly to the general public in order to get that
attention.

This is basically a matter of institutional self-denial, either intentional
or accidental, that must be clarified in order to attract proper public
input into policy making that the general public is increasingly interested
in.

"Is you is, or is you ain't" a *general public policy* organization, ICANN?

This confusion of mission and identity is at the core of all of these
problems.  And frankly, if this isn't sorted out then whoever designs the
ad campaigns doesn't have the full ability to put together an effective
general-public ad campaign, because superiors would be constraining (and
importantly distorting and thus undermining) the message they would allow
to be included in any ads.

This a "double-bind" situation, and it is systematically dysfunctional.  It
is quite possible that the failure of the execution of the ad campaign is
simply a reflection of that institutional dysfunction, systematically
obstructing the professionalism of the ad campaign.

Dan
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