Brand America part two

After posting this last week about a small observation relating to 'Brand America', I've just come across this article on Business Week, in which teams from Tribal DDB and Draft/FCB entered a competition to re-brand the U.S of A. I wasn't at Ad Week but I can't help feeling disappointed by the description of the responses? Here's an extract on the winning idea.

"Tribal DDB's, which won the competition, based its pitch around using "Americans as media." Posters would feature photographs of diverse Americans emblazoned with the phrase "Fat Ugly American," or "Stupid American." Tribal would get American celebrities to wear t-shirts that said "Ignorant American," with a number to send a text message to underneath. That number would then give information about charitable cause that celebrity was supporting that helps people abroad. Other Americans, naturally, could then get involved and support the charities themselves in small ways that connected them directly with those benefiting (and get their own t-shirts too)".

Stereotypes + celebrities + charities abroad doesn't really excite me that much and it certainly doesn't do anything to address the fact that rightly or wrongly the rest of the world see the US in a similar light to North Korea and Iran. It doesn't go nearly deeper enough.