A Study Of The Public Diplomacy Efforts Under Charlotte Beers

Charlotte Beers, a former senior advertising executive from the Madison Avenue,served as the first Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs after the9/11terrorist attack, when the United States renewed its interest in public diplomacy.Despite a series of public diplomacy efforts initiated by Beers, the U.S. overseasimage substantially deteriorated during her term, especially in the Muslim countries.The thesis aims at providing a tentative explanation for the failure of Beers’ efforts byidentifying the differences between commercial branding and public diplomacy, andtracing the influences of these differences in Beers’ programs and initiatives. Theauthor contends that the neglect of the differences between commercial branding andpublic diplomacy in the application of commercial advertising techniques led to theinconsistency between the messages conveyed by public diplomacy efforts and theU.S. foreign diplomacy,which consequentially undermined the credibility, and in turn,the effectiveness of the public diplomacy efforts by Charlotte Beers.