The Art of Peace-Building
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War is not a topic that crops up too often in the branding world. But when peace-making strategist David Nyheim came to deliver a talk at our offices, he challenged us to think about the role branding can play in confronting violence.
For every $1 spent on world peace, another $635 is spent on war - now there’s a disturbing thought. What if we could inject more into peace-building? What if, one day, we could tip that balance?
Nyheim believes that branding agencies can help. Social media, for example, is a very powerful tool that can be used to deliver strong messages through the use of soft power - a non-violent means of persuasion for peace-building.
As evidenced by the Arab Spring, he says, social media has intensely increased protest potential among populations. The fall of the Berlin Wall, inter-state conflicts post Cold War and the Colour Revolutions in Eastern Europe. These are some of the key points in history Nyheim highlights as inspiring soft power.
“After the Cold War, finding new tools to understand emerging threats became necessary. The future of power projection lies in instruments of persuasion, mainly soft power,” says Nyheim. He addressed us Wagoneers during one of our Inspire Friday at Four, or IFF, sessions.
Art expands our toolbox in finding new and creative ways of addressing the evolving challenges of peace-making.
But how does BRND WGN come into the peace-building picture? Nyheim insists that branding can create identities for war victims, bridging the divide between governments of war-torn countries and their people. By fostering war recovery and changing the narrative on war, brands can use their resources to facilitate peace-making.
“In reality, less than 1% of the world’s population has the motivation to kill. But how can we truly outnumber them in order to achieve world peace? Brands and the media have a duty here to shift dialogues and raise awareness,” he says.
In the face of social media being used to win both peace and war rather than merely the former, Nyheim strongly suggests looking at art to discover new methods of peace-building.
The media needs to show the human element of war by raising the right kind of awareness and changing discourse effectively.
He believes art inspires creative leadership. This is lacking in most political leaders and dictators, who tend to respond to war with even more violence. “Art expands our toolbox in finding new and creative ways of addressing the evolving challenges of peace-making”.
Subjective and selective portrayals of war in the media are a rising problem in attempting to wage peace, according to Nyheim. “The media needs to show the human element of war by raising the right kind of awareness and changing discourse effectively”.
Nyheim considers the lengths humanitarians go to in order to save the lives of strangers as his core inspiration. He is currently acting as chairman of International Conflict and Security (INCAS) Consulting Ltd (Malta).
INCAS is the holding group for Europe Conflict and Security (ECAS) Consulting Ltd in the United Kingdom, and provides services in conflict security investment.
