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American Morning
How Can the United States Revamp its Image?; Million Dollar Fantasies
Aired February 17, 2006 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, that looks good.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Very nice. A monkey? An emu? Those are some of the items that the Barenaked Ladies sing about. Gosh, you know, I don't like what they've done to the Rolls Royce, quite frankly.
VERJEE: Why not?
O'BRIEN: It just doesn't look right. I like the -- I'm a classic guy, and those -- it looks like a dot.
VERJEE: If you had $365 million...
O'BRIEN: Doesn't it look like a dot? I'd buy a lot of Rolls Royce. No, a plane.
VERJEE: Of course.
O'BRIEN: Island with a landing strip. Big sailboat.
VERJEE: I'd buy a G-5 with a cute pilot.
O'BRIEN: G-5, cute pilot? Yes, see, I want to get the plane that I can fly without a co-pilot.
(CROSSTALK)
VERJEE: A submarine. I'd be interested in purchasing that.
O'BRIEN: Submarine?
VERJEE: Yes, submarine.
O'BRIEN: Really? Interesting. That's an interesting one. What are you going to do with that?
VERJEE: Go underwater and take a look.
O'BRIEN: Go underwater. That's a stupid question. You get a stupid answer! Go underwater! Thank you.
We're going to check in with...
VERJEE: It's a different world under there. O'BRIEN: We're going to the showroom. We're going to do lifestyles of the rich and famous in just a little bit with Dannielle Romano.
(NEWSBREAK)
VERJEE: When you travel around the world and you ask people what do they think of the United States, they often don't have very nice things to say. The world sees pictures of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, or the war in Iraq. The U.S. has an image problem abroad. Americans and American icons are becoming targets. This week, KFC and McDonald's were attacked because of the cartoon controversy that depicted the Prophet Muhammed as terrorist.
Now, if you take a look at a BBC survey of how people in 33 countries view other nations, what you see is this, that Japan, France, Great Britain, India, China, all get generally positive ratings. When you look at the U.S., see where the U.S. stands? It's right above Iran. The opinion is generally much more negative in positive.
So does America need a good marketing campaign? The talent on Madison Avenue can sell snow to Eskimos, so how would it sell America's image overseas?
Advertising executive Linda Kaplan Thaler joins us now.
No pressure!
LINDA KAPLAN THALER, ADVERTISING EXECUTIVE: No, no pressure!
VERJEE: But if you were Karen Hughes, who's really responsible significantly for portraying that better image abroad, what would you do?
THALER: Well, this has been a tough job for everybody who has had it before her. I think she's doing positive things by listening, which we need to do more of. But I think the main thing that she needs to do is to think about, instead of rebranding America, rebrand Americans.
VERJEE: How?
THALER: OK. First of all, right now, if we would think of America as a brand, the celebrity spokesperson would be George Bush, all right? Now, George Bush is not as popular around the world as we would want. So maybe what you need to do is concentrate less on the head of state and concentrate more on people in this country. There are amazing stories to tell. It's more of one-on-one, rather than on a bunch of flag waving.
VERJEE: Right, but how would you do that, though? I mean, would you get more business enterprise from different countries? Do you -- how would you put that human face that's very compassionate and very caring, which is what the American people are -- and which, by the way, when you travel in the Arab and Muslim world, they say we like the American people, we just don't like Bush.
THALER: Absolutely. Well, first of all, we're not even using the Internet to its fullest capabilities. It's called the World Wide Web for a reason. It's meant to connect us. You know, one of the biggest things teens are doing is myspace.com. You know, where you can create your own content? Well, what about having myworld.com?
What about finding a way if somebody in America wants to start, you know, I don't know, making gloves and they want to make it international? What about making it easier for somebody to connect with somebody in another country or somebody in Beijing to do it together? Businesses can do this if they just -- you know, if we just help to pair them together.
VERJEE: And that's what you're describing more personal, more at a grassroots level. But when you're looking at an overall picture -- and, you know, there are a lot of people overseas, particularly in the Arab world, that say, you know what? The war on terror is a war on Islam. How do you repackage the war on terror or the way America portrays it to the rest of the world so they don't perceive it that way?
THALER: First of all, you don't go after people who are so dead set against America that you're never going to change them. It's like selling a sneaker to somebody who doesn't wear shoes.
VERJEE: So what do you do?
THALER: Well, the first thing you do is you look at your demographic that you're trying to reach. You're trying to the people who are on the fence, who haven't yet made a decision. And you reach them on a one-to-one grassroots level. You don't do it with symbols, you don't do it with flag -waving, you don't do it with saluting.
We are perceived as Americans as loud, as arrogant, and as people who don't listen. So the first thing we have to do is maybe be quiet a little bit, and maybe invite people here -- whether it's through the Internet, whether it's through forums that we create, to say you know what, we don't know everything.
When were these people most compassionate about the United States? After 9/11. After they saw that we were vulnerable. But if we're seen as a country that knows everything, then we can't learn anything.
VERJEE: And also, you know, the United States, to be fair, I mean, gives a lot of money for humanitarian aid to Africa, tsunami, for example. You know, there was and is a positive sentiment to that regard. But I just want to quickly move to another issue, which is policy.
THALER: Right.
VERJEE: It's tough, because when you talk to people in the Arab and Muslim world, they say you know what the real issue here is for us? The core issue is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. And that's going to be tough for any executive or anyone in the administration to repackage that perception in the world on that conflict. How would you do it?
THALER: Well, first, it's foolish to say it's going to happen overnight. But the can start with small initiatives. You know, our parent company proved this. Maurice Levy started an advertising agency made up of Israelis and Palestinians to create what he called the Peace Campaign.
It's not important the campaign that they actually created. It's important that they sat down at a table and worked together. Because when you're working together to build something up, you can't tear something down. And by the way, if we want the world to give us a better face, we might start by redesigning our Web site. I would like us to redesign our Web site?
VERJEE: How -- to what? How?
THALER: Well, it's not friendly, it's not inviting. There's no virtual tours. I went into one U.S. Web site; it said it was under construction. Greenland has a better Web site than we do. New Zealand is beautiful.
(CROSSTALK)
THALER: I was on every Web site. I tried to find one worse than ours, and I couldn't!
VERJEE: OK. Linda Kaplan Thaler, thank you very much. And maybe you can meet up with Karen Hughes and have a chat about...
THALER: And do the Web site!
VERJEE: And do the Web site. You're enlisted to do the Web site.
THALER: OK.
VERJEE: Thank you so much. Appreciate your insights -- Miles.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: Avoiding exercise. Just a buck a day. The concept has one -- it sounds compelling. Andy is in favor.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: Yes, I am.
O'BRIEN: The concept has one Florida middle school people in big trouble, however. Authorities say he was letting kids in his gym class buy their way out of class for a buck.
SERWER: Oh, come on.
O'BRIEN: In exchange, they get a passing...
SERWER: That's cheap! (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SGT. MIKE WARD, ESCAMBIA CO. SHERIFF'S OFFICE: The teacher would tell him, if you pay me, you don't have to dress out, and I'll still give you a passing grade, or 100 percent for the day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: OK. So as Andy points out, if you're going to go down, go down for bigger money!
SERWER: Yes. Yes.
O'BRIEN: It was only about $230 in play here. But it's considered a bribe.
SERWER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Now he could face more than just a few days in jail. I don't know what the status is of his job. Presumably that's...
SERWER: Not a good way to make money.
O'BRIEN: I mean, it just seems like for 230 bucks, he's feeling like maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Maybe he was thinking it was a joke. I don't know.
SERWER: I mean, it had to be a joke.
O'BRIEN: I guess he's not laughing now.
SERWER: A stupid joke.
VERJEE: Not too bright.
O'BRIEN: Andy Serwer is here, as you have heard.
SERWER: Yes, more substantial business news than that perhaps coming up. You know the Segway? How about the suns of Segway. These are actually useful. Plus, the sneaker wars take a nasty turn.
Stay tuned to AMERICAN MORNING coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VERJEE: The inventor of Segway has something new on tap quite literally -- Andy.
SERWER: He does, Zain. And you remember Dean Kamen, he's the person who invented the Segway. There's Dean Kamen, one of the world's foremost inventors I think we can call him.
O'BRIEN: He is. No, he is an uber inventor. He is the man.
SERWER: He is, Miles. He is an engineer.
The Segway, though, much ballyhooed about nothing.
O'BRIEN: It was a great idea in search of an application.
SERWER: We never have to walk again. That's great.
VERJEE: Did you ride one of them?
SERWER: I have ridden them before, and they're a lot of fun.
VERJEE: You, Miles?
SERWER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: They're just fine, but what did you do with it?
SERWER: There's a lot of nothingness. And there's not really a market for them.
But now he has come up with two big inventions that he thinks will have practical applications, and THEY sound like they really might. Two machines, one to make clean water, and another to make electricity. This in the third world; 1.1 people -- 1.1 billion people, I should say, don't have clean drinking water around the water; 1.8 billion don't have electricity. He is making these things, the clean-water machine, which we don't have pictures of, is the size of a washing machine, and it can make a thousand liters of clean water a day. The electricity generator runs on cow dung and it can produce a kilowatt of electricity constantly, which is enough for 70 light bulbs, and he's going to be distributing this an entrepreneur in Bangladesh. So this is really one to watch, I think. It could be really a big thing.
O'BRIEN: You know, it's amazing, in a world that can give you Segways, that that many people can be without clean water.
SERWER: Right. Well, I think he might have felt that sting a little bit, with so many people out there needing so much, and you're putting your brain into the Segway.
VERJEE: When would any of these become available?
SERWER: The prototypes are being built right now, and they're starting to roll these out.
I want to talk a little bit about the show wars. We were talking about Sirius about XM, Coke versus Pepsi. How about Nike versus Adidas? This is a nasty battle. Right now, Nike is going to sue Adidas over shoe technology, saying Adidas, which now owns Reebok, by the way, coming out with a new KG, Kevin Garnett shoe, that violates 19 patents and 16 years of research.
O'BRIEN: Nike is way bigger.
SERWER: Way bigger.
O'BRIEN: Way bigger. They're picking on them. SERWER: They do them because they got to do it.
O'BRIEN: They got to, because they're big.
SERWER: Did you know, by the way, that Kevin Garnett is going to turn 30 years old this year?
O'BRIEN: Wow.
SERWER: Isn't that something? I mean, I still think of him as the teenager.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I know. I'll feeling old myself every minute.
VERJEE: Thanks, Andy.
Coming up on the program, one of America's Olympic heroes will join us live. The halfpipe gold medalist Hannah Teter (ph), she's only 19, and she, shall we say, soared over the competition in Turin. So how do you tap that? We'll ask her, and I'm going to try to get a few tips on how to get off my backside when I try this snowboarding thing.
And then there is Dannielle Romano.
DANNIELLE ROMANO, DAILYCANDY.COM: Good morning, Miles!
O'BRIEN: She's in her element, she is.
ROMANO: I'm picking up something nice. A couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of nice. I'll pick you up after the show, OK?
O'BRIEN: Excellent. We're talking about stuff we can't afford today because we are Powerball dreams. There's $365 million at stake. You got to play to win, Dannielle. Are you in? You in?
ROMANO: My tickets are in my pockets! My pockets are filled with them.
All right, we'll see you in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VERJEE: If I had a million dollars or $365 million, you would never see me again. But I'm here next to Miles, working.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's join in the dream, folks. And we know you're out there. Now, if you took that lump sum payout if you win -- we'll do a little math for you. Let's get real here, folks. First of all, as you know, always take the lump sum. Forget that stinking annuity thing.
OK, $177.3 million, 25 percent for federal taxes. That's probably going to be in the higher bracket than that, but let's just say you have some creative dodging there, a good account. So you got $133 million burning a hole in your pocket. That's more than a hole, that's a conflagration in your pocket! A big fire!
Dannielle Romano from dailycandy.com. By the way, I understand that you got a big sale at your company. You probably got a big wad of cash coming your way, right?
ROMANO: Daily Candy's a great company. I wish I could afford it, Miles. But those Power Ball winners are looking for our advice. It's a conflagration, as you say. They're on fire!
I am here on 11th Avenue at Manhattan Motor Cars. I'm far from home, but it's very luxurious. Very luxurious. So of course we should donate all the money to charity, right?
O'BRIEN: Yes, but after we've saved the children, then we get a Rolls, right?
ROMANO: After we've saved the children and the dogs, we get a Rolls Royce.
VERJEE: Tell us -- yes, tell us about it.
ROMANO: You can see the Phantom behind me. That's about I think $335, give or take. It's a couple clams, you know, $335,000. The one behind...
O'BRIEN: Oh, it's got the old Lincoln Continental doors. I like those doors.
ROMANO: The suicide doors. Keep on rolling. That's what my mom used to call them. I don't know. No, it's totally safe. It drives like a tank. I'm coming to get you after the show, Miles. You can throw your Segway in the trunk, we'll be fine.
O'BRIEN: You know, I don't like the look of it. I think they've ruined that car. It looks like a Dodge Magnum thing or whatever 300 or whatever that thing is, you know?
ROMANO: I think it's classy, very classy. So a car, you know, you need a driver probably, because you don't want to be distracted by having to pay attention to the traffic laws. So a Rolls Royce, which you can see behind me. How about a private island? Zain said she'd never come back. I think a private island that you owned entirely...
O'BRIEN: With an air strip. I need an air strip.
VERJEE: That would work for us.
ROMANO: Need an air strip.
VERJEE: Private island, beautiful cars. What about beautiful jewelry to couple with that?
ROMANO: Beautiful jewelry. I found this -- Daily Candy found this appraiser named Meriwether. Her site's called Meriwether.net. She's a gemologist. She has really cool estate jewelry. So you want to keep it classy. You want to get some old stuff, so it looks like you've been in money forever. You know, you were born into it. This is your grandmother's old ring. So she has broaches and bracelets and necklaces worth all sorts of -- you know, again, just a couple of shells in the bucket to us. But, you know, pick up some jewels, of course.
O'BRIEN: By the way, we kind of breezed by that island thing. It's Vladi -- what is it? I just want to make sure we get the Web site.
ROMANO: It sounds German, I think? Entrepreneur? It's vladi- private-islands, I think. Some crazy entrepreneur has like 30 islands for sale. I like one called Tago Mago (ph).
VERJEE: How much is an island these days? How much is an island going for these days?
ROMANO: You know, a couple million. He has a wide range. It depends on the acreage and the location, of course. I would want something warm. But they have some, you know, in the Arctic Circle, I think, too.
O'BRIEN: Who wants one of those? Geez!
ROMANO: You got -- you know, like any real estate, some people like cold weather, Miles.
O'BRIEN: I guess. Once you got...
ROMANO: So it's a wide range.
O'BRIEN: ... that kind of jack, you can have a cold weather haunt.
ROMANO: Two to several million.
VERJEE: What about luxury spa treatments, massages? There's no point in having all that money and doing -- not doing all of that.
ROMANO: You have to indulge. Mandarin Oriental, that hotel group around the world, offers this thing. I think it's called Oriental Harmony massage. It's a four-handed massage. It's just under two hours for about $615. So pretty unattainable in the every day, but, again, once we're big lotto winners, we'll just cruise on over in our Rolls, have the driver wait outside, get the amazing four-handed massage that's like heaven on Earth. We'll be set.
O'BRIEN: All right, so I'm getting a little sleepy here. Actually, I'm sleepy almost all the time. But -- if you want to turn in, you want to turn in on those precale (ph) sheets with, what 14,000, 15,000 threads or whatever it is? What's the deal on those?
ROMANO: Like a million, trillion thread counts. Are you saying I'm boring?
O'BRIEN: No, no, no. You always -- no, I'm always fascinated.
ROMANO: You must -- fascinating. You must know Le Ron It's a French company -- well, it's here in America, but it has a French name. Le Ron. They make custom sheets. So it's like couture for your bed. You need couture for your bed.
O'BRIEN: Couture for your bed.
ROMANO: So a custom-designed set. It's like, I mean, it's this thread count of cotton that is so glamorous, it's like silk almost. I can't even imagine what sleeping on something like that is like.
O'BRIEN: We're not talking satin here? Satin's tacky, right?
ROMANO: No, no, no, but it has a very satiny feel, because the thread count is so high that it's so smooth.
O'BRIEN: Gotcha.
ROMANO: Beautiful cotton.
VERJEE: Keeping it real. Dannielle Romano. Only for some.
ROMANO: Yes! Down to earth!
O'BRIEN: Real for some. Dannielle Romano, dailycandy.com. Thanks for dropping by. Coming up on the program...
ROMANO: Bring your Segways, I'll be right there!
O'BRIEN: All right. Coming up, one day, it's a blizzard; the next day, it's spring. What's up with this wacky weather? We'll ask the publisher of the old Farmer's Almanac, see if he has any answers ahead. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Well, you're about to meet a woman who didn't let herself go to the dogs after she dropped out of corporate America. Here's Jennifer Westhoven.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN WATTS, DOG OWNER/HANDLER: I just feel like this.
JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Susan Watts left the corporate world and started a home business training dogs.
WATTS: We opened a little place in the basement and I immediately started getting some clients, just pet people and pets, nothing big. And I got really busy.
What do you think about that, huh?
WESTHOVEN: Her dogs started winning awards and she started spending almost every weekend showing off her champion canine. This week, she was at Madison Square Garden where her Dachshund, Simone, made it all the way the Westminster Dog Show.
WATTS: It's like goose bumps. You know, you're really excited. I wasn't -- I have to say I was not nervous until I stepped out onto the green carpet when I went to get my arm band this morning. And then it really hit me, that's it like, oh, my gosh, I'm really at Westminster.
If you're nervous, it goes right down the lead. And she knew right then, oh, all I have to do is just misbehave a little and mom will give me bait. And she was right. I broke down and gave her the bait. Which got her to stand nicely and helped us make the first cut. So I was glad of that.
WESTHOVEN: Simone didn't make it to the final ring, but her owner says they'll both be back next year.
WATTS: I'll keep at it. I -- you know, I don't know if I'll ever get a best in show at Westminster, but I'm sure, you know, in the next ten years, if I keep going, I'll end up eventually in a best in show. I'm certain of that.
It's just a big family. And, you know, when you come here, it's hard not to root for your friends. We're very, very, competitive with each other, but it's also a very supportive area. And you just make the best friends.
Jennifer Westhoven, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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