Brand...

The unique genius of Zack Smiter was to create himself as a brand...He understood to the key to success with voters was to make them into happy customers...his genius was to make passive consumers mistake a brand with an experience.

From Chris Hedges:

An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle and manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, earthquakes, untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks—these events play well on computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union negotiations and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal narratives or stimulating images.