IS a brand

The IS is a terrorist organization that declares the raise of an, unrecognized, Islamic state. The aim of the militants is to establish and spread the Sharia, the religious law as the one in governance of the states and to gather people under the Islamic faith. ISIS in one of the most known terrorist organizations around the world, this is due also by the attention given by the members of the Islamic state to the use of communication. The approach is based on the exploitation of Internet and social media to foster propaganda and proselytism. The analysis of the IS over time has highlighted some elements of the official communication that can be related with those of a company. The Islamic state built a strong brand image that made the organisation known, recognizable and strongly characterized. The research was directed on the web to understand the evolution process of the image of the IS. The issues were mapped, starting from Google Trends searches for "ISIS" and the progression of the definition on Wikipedia of the IS to figure out when and how the brand was built and defined. The research process is then directed to what is called “the official Brand Communication” and to the one given by the main European media and on Google Images, as a complementary part of our analysis. A focus is made on the linguistic content — mode and tone, words and topics — and in the visual content of the images that create the brand identity of the Islamic state. The balance and the coexistence of all these elements constitute the brand image of the IS, the overall ideas and imaginary of the Islamic state recognized in the world.