Hitler and the power of branding

The public outcry over the Department of Tourism’s (DOT) P49-million rebranding, its come-on “Love The Philippines” slogan, logo, and video clips filched from other countries shown at the launching have yet to die down and now another one comes into view.

This is the touted new logo of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) which is very similar (again!?) to gas corporation Petron’s wavy red-and-blue. The old Pagcor logo showed two hands in a giving gesture that symbolized Pagcor’s mandate.

Its new one looks more like the crown of a fowl to the eyes of those who know what Pagcor is all about and the outlawed online gaming involving fighting cocks. If there is a new slogan to go with it, we did not hear about it. This Pagcor outing also cost millions.

What’s in a logo or a slogan, you ask. Plenty. Plenty of subliminal and supraliminal stimuli and messages contained in a small design or a few words. People in advertising and marketing—the creatives—crack their heads over these, and so do artists who create art that will outlive them.

These are not efforts that gained ground in the late 20th century only. Someone should do a study of Old and New Testament biblical stuff that carried messages that ring true till today. Start with Moses’ tablet or the serpent on the staff that he raised, similar to the Greek’s Aesculapian rod that is a medical symbol.

Church leaders adopt short and crisp bible passages as their mottos. Pope Francis’ motto on his coat of arms is “Miserando atque eligendo” (roughly translated as “showing mercy by choosing” the unworthy one. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle’s slogan is “Dominus est!” (It is the Lord!), a cry of surprise taken from John 21:7. To each her/his own mantra to live by.

And consider Adolf Hitler’s way to sell Nazism through symbols and catchwords foremost of which were his swastika logo, “Heil Hitler” greeting and the “Sieg Heil” salute (right palm and arm raised slightly above chest level) which former president Rodrigo Duterte imitated for his minions but with the hand clenched into a fist. The swastika was an ancient symbol that was ruined because of Hitler’s use of it.

And yes, Hitler even used aesthetics (the cinema, for one) to sell his deadly crusade to exterminate millions of Jews. I have the book “Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics” by Frederic Spotts. I have watched Leni Riefenstahl’s black and white Hitler-commissioned films on the Third Reich, “Triumph of the Will,” among them, that arouse awe and disgust. (I did write about the documentaries on the African tribes that Riefenstahl did when she was close to 90.)

Recently, I stumbled upon “Hitler as Art Director: What the Nazis’ Style Guide Says about ‘Power of Design’” by Jim Edwards of CBS News. He interviewed Steven Heller, a design historian and the cofounder of the Master of Fine Arts in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Heller is the author of “The Swastika, a Symbol Beyond Redemption?” and “Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State.” Edwards describes these two books as about the history of fascist symbolism.

Adding interest to Edwards’ interview with Heller is the latter’s account on how he discovered in an antiquarian book fair the German Nazi Party’s handbook on branding and design. He had found the Holy Grail he had been looking for, he said.

Heller described his find in his blog:

“ … 70 full-page, full-color plates (on heavy paper) that provide examples of virtually every Nazi flag, insignia, patterns for official Nazi party office signs, special armbands for the Reichsparteitag (Reichs Party Day), and Honor Badges. The book ‘over-explains the obvious’ and leaves no Nazi Party organization question, regardless of how minute, unanswered.”

So you see, branding or rebranding, as in the case of DOT and Pagcor, is not for the faint of heart or dull of mind in search of a quick buck. Not if that quick buck is in the millions and comes from the taxes of the toiling masses that cannot even afford to be tourists in their own country. The oft-repeated refrain these days is, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” If it ain’t itching, why scratch it?

The answer, many are wont to suspect, is that there could be a concerted effort, a covert plan, if you may, to erase, erase, erase, and make way from something new or resurrected. To whiten the sepulchers, and to subtly ram, subliminally or supraliminally, a resurrected version of the so-called golden past that, in fact, was a dark era for countless Filipinos who suffered, an era that must not be forgotten and repeated.

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