Blackwater's Corporate Image Loses Its Innocence

 

Corporate image is something that Blackwater has long struggled with as it has tried to navigate its way among its various contracting agencies, targeted recruits, potential business clients and now the public.  The New York Times just devoted an entire story to Blackwater's new logo, claiming that Blackwater has shifted its image from macho to corporate.  The real story of Blackwater's conflicted corporate image is much more complex than that.  The NYT also missed the fact that the new logo accompanied a redesigned website, something that is much more telling of the shifting image. 

The original image Blackwater projected to the world was simple and is website was built around its logo and giving basic information about its services.  In July 2002 its home page featured three services:  Blackwater Training System, Blackwater Target Systems and Blackwater Security Consulting.  At that time, Blackwater Security Consulting was little more than a dream and Security Consulting wasn't even hyperlinked to additional information like the other two services.  By November of 2002 they began featuring an image of their police training services.  In the 2003 run up to the Iraq War and through the early part of the war, the Blackwater site's changes reflected the rapid growth of the company, namely the addition of Blackwater aviation and its canine unit, as well as the addition of several new government contracts.  Its message was straightforward and simple, what one would expect from a bunch of former military guys running a company providing military grade services to various government departments, including Defense, State and Transportation. 

In October 2003, the site shifted to a more professional look, with basic news about the company that included a nugget that foreshadows the changes that were to come to Blackwater:  Blackwater opened an office at Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia.  (For the uninitiated, this ground zero in the world of cloak and dagger, spitting distance from CIA headquarters.)  Tysons Coner has a way of causing the military's Boy Scouts to lose their innocence.  Blackwater would never be the same.

In 2004 Blackwater mushroomed into a global company, opening offices in Baghdad, Kuwait City and Amman, Jordan, winning the first battle in American history fought by contractors (Najaf) and marketing its services around the world, with the caveat, "Any and all defense services supplied to foreign nationals will only be pursuant to proper authorization by the Department of State."  Its website was regularly updated with news, but they were clearly too busy expanding to change it to reflect the underlying shifts going on at the company.

Finally in mid-2005 Blackwater breaks out the ninjas and rolls out its new image: BW as of the home of the tier-one operator, BW as the place where units of the military, police and Other Government Agencies go to catch Blackwater Fever and BW as the go-to company for special operations services.  Their mission was becoming more refined:  "solutions for the 21st century in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere."  It might sound hokey to some, but this is how they perceive what they're doing.   Blackwater is actually a very rare corporation in the modern age in that it truly believes in its mission. 

Their made-over website soon boasted that Blackwater was "a turnkey solution for 4th Generation warfare."   It featured dark, masked, heavily armed ninjas, without uniforms, moving in formation.  It was cool.  It was secretive.  It was Blackwater cool.  At this post-Fallujah, pre-Nissor Square golden age of Blackwater, the Blackwater operators were the rock stars of the Iraq war; they knew it and they were proud--even if they could only hint at what they were up to.  Lower the Tysons Corner cone of silence.

Blackwater cool didn't last for long on their website.  Changes to the site in July 2005 added a picture of a child for the first time--alongside the ninjas.  This is a very telltale change, revealing one of the tensions the company was struggling with as it presented its services to the world, a world that's scared of ninjas.

 

Ninjas or Social Workers? 

Hurricane Katrina helped bring out the softer side of Blackwater as they rushed to offer their services to the relief effort and images of their own workers headed to New Orleans appeared on their site, replacing the ninjas.  If ever there was a time to help their countrymen, hopefully cover costs and more while demonstrating that the private sector could do a better job than government bureaucracies, the days of "Heckuva job Brownie" were it.  The ninjas would never come back onto the home page.  Soon afterwards, they deleted the references to 4th generation warfare and replaced the ninjas with pictures of Blackwater operators in the middle of a group of happy Third World children.  The shot even included a lovable pooch. 

Blackwater's image was entering an uncomfortable warm and fuzzy phase.

The warm and fuzzy campaign hit its zenith in the fall of 2005 as Blackwater continued angling for UN contracts to police the world's trouble spots such as Dafur.  Blackwater took out a full page ad in a PR publication of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade association of private military corporations.  (Blackwater recently left it.)   If the picture of the brown, starving baby being spoon-fed didn't bring tears (pictured left), the text sure would:

Now that we are aware of many atrocities on this earth, those of us who enjoy secure, peaceful and free lives are called upon to help share that promise with the world.

Through selfless commitment and compassion for all people, Blackwater works to make a difference in the world and provide hope to those who still live in desperate times.

Pass the Kleenex.

At this point, I suspect even the guys in Moyock knew they were putting it on a little thick. 

The tension between their newly found feminine side and their heart-pounding, alpha male testosterone was particularly evident in some of their parallel PR efforts.  Around the same time, Blackwater promotional videos surfaced showing potential contracting agencies the the not so tender side of Blackwater Aviation and Blackwater training programs (the latter video has been removed from YouTube due to copyright claims by Blackwater, probably a good idea given the current lynch mob mentality.  (However, my preferred video of Blackwater Aviation features Blackwater's "Ass Monkeys" acting like, well, ass monkeys in Little Birds in Baghdad can still be viewed.)

Throughout all of these changes, Blackwater avoided the press, preferring to manage its image itself through its website.  Ironically, in the year when they took their first steps to reach out to the media, first through an interview with The Spy Who Billed Me, then in some occasional articles as they tested the waters, they lost control of their image. 

As the NYT noted, Blackwater has now moved toward a more more mature corporate logo, but the NYT missed that this shift included another makeover of their website.  The new site is clean and professional, sterilely rising above the inherent tensions in a company that works both for the diplomats of the State Department and the bad boys of the CIA while genuinely seeking to make the world a better place through heavily armed paramilitary services.  Like Blackwater itself, Blackwater's corporate image, too, has lost its innocence and, sadly, much of its flavor. 

Comments

[Jeff Carr]

You're probably already aware of this, RJ, but The White Rabbit writes a clever Blackwater blog over at http://www.blackwaterblog.com

Sharon Weinberger from Danger Room told me that she's pretty sure that the White Rabbit is a Blackwater employee, but she can't confirm it. Either way, it's an entertaining, inside perspective.

[R J Hillhouse]

Thanks, I've been aware of it and its suspected DNA since it first launched in June. Actually, I don't think it's from Blackwater itself, but from a company very close to them, probably the same one that produced the report on the Fallujah ambush that was released yesterday.