ISIS' Sinister Media Strategy, and How the West Is Fighting Back

Here's an ugly truth: ISIS has a really effective brand strategy.

Al Qaeda terrorists had a manifesto that claimed to represent the common man (the name means "The Base") and some grainy, boring video, but ISIS is going after the supervillain look as hard as it can. It's got a scary acronym (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also referred to as ISIL and the less Twitter-friendly IS), a huge online presence and -- not kidding -- flashy "annual reports" since 2012. The people attracted to the organization vary across metrics like cultural background, age and sex. Workers at the US State Department's Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) have been putting together a propaganda push designed to counter ISIS' strategy, including trolling pro-ISIS Twitter users and pushing out an incredibly disturbing and sarcastic propaganda video on YouTube.