MenuiPads don’t kill
December 17, 2014
Kalashnikov Concern, the notorious Russian weapon company, rebranded earlier this month. The company is owned by Rostec State Corporation, a government controlled conglomerate that is also involved in everything from pharmaceuticals to aircraft manufacturing, and from construction to optics and weapon systems.
The launch press release stated “The rebranding of the Concern’s product trademarks was done while preserving the key ideology and the historic legacy of the brand and also taking into account the perception of the brand among its target audiences.”
The Rostec web site posted this description of the video shown at the brand launch: “A slickly produced marketing video produced for the launch of the new brand describes the Kalashnikov as a ‘weapon of peace’…
“The simple and reliable AK was also in demand well beyond the borders of the Soviet Union…Freedom movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America could at last fight back against professional colonial armies. The AK-47 gave them the chance to demand rights and achieve justice.”
So what rankles? That this weapons company is rebranded like one would rebrand a soap brand or a Silicon Valley technology marvel? Every company is entitled to rebrand. One can’t blame the Russian firm responsible for this work. Even if they might have been reluctant to take this project on, the option to decline might not have been a realistic scenario in Russia today.
Branding firms can decide for themselves what type of clients for whom they will or will not work. There are firms in North America, for example, that would decline working for a tobacco company. Yet others will only work on “ethical” brands. That is for everyone’s own self interest and conscience to determine.
The doublespeak in the press release and company web posts is what is galling, when one considers the implications of what is actually being said.
Well, it’s good to know that this rebranding was done with its key audiences in mind. Among these audiences using the “weapon of peace” most likely includes the FARC (the guerilla group in Columbia) and Boko Harum (the Islamist group responsible for kidnapping hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria, among other atrocities). Osama bin Laden was famously photographed pointing one of the “peace weapons.”
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Here is a company that posts on a full page a photograph of Mikhail Kalashnikov, (inventor of the AK-47 and company namesake) with his statement, “A firearm must be beautiful like a woman, it must fit your hands perfectly and make you want to take it!”
One could excuse the misogyny as a statement made by a military general some decades past, but the decision to highlight this quote was made in the past few weeks or months.
This is not a company trying to rebrand in order to modernize the brand, to bring the company into the 21st century. This is a company with a mid 20th century mindset, pretending to be something they aren’t.
The company speaks of peace, knowing full well that their weapons are used for the exact opposite. They are trying to rebrand this company as part of an initiative to double production, expand its military sales and “launch a line of apparel and accessories to make its civilian products more attractive around the world.” Sergei Chemezov, head of Rostec, said he “hoped the new brand would become as well known as Apple across the world.”
Rather than comparisons to Apple, the more apt comparison is to the wolf in the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, disguised as the grandmother.
Hopefully, this modern-day wolf won’t fool the world. And iPads aren’t used to killed people.
