“If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning
a word in the prospect’s mind. A word that nobody else owns.”
- Al Ries & Laura Ries, The Origin of Brands

For decades, U.S. strategists-for-hire have been quietly molding the opinions of voters and the messages of candidates in elections around the world.  They have worked for presidential candidates on every continent (in Britain, Israel, India, Korea, South Africa, Venezuela, Brazil, to name a few…).  Without the noise of tanks or troops, these Americans have been spreading our brand of democracy from the Middle East to the middle of the South American jungle.

Our Brand Is Crisis is an astounding look at one of their campaigns and its earth-shattering aftermath.  With flabbergasting access to think sessions, media training and the making of smear campaigns, we watch how the consultants’ marketing strategies shape the relationship between a leader and his people.  And we see a shocking example of how the all-American art of branding can affect the “spreading of democracy” overseas.

The film follows James Carville, Jeremy Rosner and a team of U.S. political consultants as they travel to South America to help Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (a.k.a. “Goni”) become President of Bolivia.  When the consultants arrive, the candidate’s prospects for a win look bleak.  Goni has been educated in the United States and speaks Spanish with a heavy American accent.  He made a fortune in mining — an industry which, in the eyes of most Bolivians, raped the country for centuries.  He was President of Bolivia from 1993 to 19971 so, although he has been responsible for many innovative economic and social reforms, he isn’t new.  And the people desperately want someone young and fresh to guide them out of the devastating economic crisis.  In a country where the majority is indigenous and 70 percent of the population is living below the poverty line, a wealthy, white businessman is a very hard sell.

But the consultants are convinced Goni is the best man for the job.  As President before, Goni created a unique form of privatization, attracting foreign investment and using the profits to create Social Security for the elderly and free health care for mothers and children.  Goni says he wants to come back and finish perfecting his reforms.  His ideas, if successful, could solve one of the difficult problems facing much of the world – how to make market economics work to the benefit of the people.  So how can an elite man like Goni, clearly not a candidate with a winning profile, communicate his good intentions to the “common men” who might elect him?

Through a strong message and the right brand.

“Customers must recognize that you stand for something.”
- Howard Schultz, Starbucks

In classic verite style, Our Brand Is Crisis is the first documentary to take viewers into the rooms where the strategies and decisions are made, giving audiences access to some astonishing  realities.  We watch Americans employing the same imagery and techniques used to market McDonald’s to change the political future of another country.

And it happens all the time.

• Return to the Our Brand Is Crisis film info page.