The Weaponized Marketing book explains how Islamic jihadists win through marketing

We must fight back with a marketing battle plan that uses the techniques that built the world’s leading brands. Where military might, diplomacy, and well-meaning “strategic communications” have failed, Weaponized Marketing offers a blueprint for success.

From Rowman & Littlefield, Weaponized Marketing: Defeating Islamic Jihadist with Marketing that Built the World’s Top Brands is part of its Security and Professional Intelligence Education Series (SPIES), the imprint for books on topics of interest in homeland security, intelligence analysis, law enforcement, in support of national security.

Terrorism is Marketing

Terrorism is marketing; an act of communication more than violence. Islamic jihadist attacks kill few, but have reach and impact through marketing. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri acknowledges: “The media jihad against the enemy is no less important than the material fight against it.”

ISIS recruits “media operatives” for “media platoons,” explaining “media weapons” are “more potent than atomic bombs.” Even as they lose territory, ISIS marketing remains as strong as ever, with media output actually increasing, as attempts to shut it down fail to even dent its reach. Islamic jihadists have effectively weaponized marketing.

Westerners Fail to Counter Jihadist Marketing

Americans—the inventors of modern marketing—are not even on this battlefield. We waste millions of dollars on the State Department’s ludicrous social media engagement and counter-messaging programs, the aimless strategic communications at the Department of Defense, and the FBI’s downright embarrassing anti-extremist games, to name a few.

For hundreds of years, the West has attempted to impose its values, culture and structures on the region. Today, the Middle East is going through tectonic change with a promising new generation hungry for a different world. That requires a better approach. We are now at an inflection point. With the U.S. military in retreat and diplomatic efforts racking up decades of failure, we face the question “What now?”

A Practical Proven Way to Win

The Weaponized Marketing book answers that question with a detailed and practical battle plan for victory. This book breaks new ground by applying proven business methods to intractable military and diplomatic problems. Where bullets, bombs, policy papers, and press releases have failed, our approach–radical for government—has a solid track record for businesses that built the world’s most successful brands.

While much has been written about the growing sophistication of marketing by Islamic jihadists, what is missing is a solution. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of how marketing works and how terrorists use it. It is not merely a matter of finding magic words in a “narrative” and spreading them through jihadist social media.

Weaponized Marketing provides an understanding of how Islamic jihadists have effectively weaponized marketing and how we in the West waste our marketing advantage. It explains the ethical, functional, and effective difference between propaganda and marketing, and why marketing can always defeat propaganda. Lastly, it describes a comprehensive marketing model and blueprint for action that mobilizes the best and latest marketing techniques to defeat Radical Islam.

Weaponized Marketing doesn’t just stop at analysis; it provides a practical way forward, to meet Radical Islam on the marketing battlefield. Because we have made a career in branding and marketing in the real world for some of the world’s best known brands, ours is not an academic or theoretical approach, but a proven and practiced how-to methodology and action plan.  With original research and fresh interviews with leading experts in marketing, counter-terror strategies, and the Muslim reform movement, this book offers something absolutely unique and very much needed.