Richard Telofski

on "Irregular Competition"

Archive for December, 2009

The Warm and Fuzzy Side of the Anti-Corporate Movement

Dec 23

Posted by Richard in Humor, Strategy | 1 Comment

ball of yarn 51When you think of the anti-corporate movement usually images of protest and boycott come to mind, with all the rancor, derision, and conflict that come with such things. Think the word “anti-corporate” and our conditioning often leads us into the realm of serious, heavy, and sometimes troubling thoughts.

Well, not today.

Today, think cute. Think warm and fuzzy, literally as well as figuratively. Think yarn.

I recently noticed an article entitled “The Anti-Corporate Gift Guide” on the blog Million Dollar Swim. “Anti-Corporate Gift Guide?” That’s a really cute and humorous approach to such a heavy concept. During the holiday season, how could I not read this one? I couldn’t. So I did.

This article uses as its theme for anti-corporatism the idea of making gifts to give or the idea of buying handmade articles. This post was written by a woman named Amelia, living in Montreal, and operating a “little yarn shop.” Amelia tells us that business was good two weekends ago and that she had many customers rushing into the shop for gift-making materials. I’m glad her shop was busy. I like to see any business do well.

She tells us that to “hold out against consumerism” she will be knitting all the gifts that she is giving this season. (Presumably using materials from her own shop.)

Moving on within this theme of anti-consumerism, Amelia then tells us that if she was to buy gifts this season rather than make them herself, she mentions and pictures about a half-dozen handmade gifts, made by other handcrafters, that she would purchase. You may go to her article here to see those pictures and read those descriptions if so inclined.

I suppose with regard to Amelia’s would-be purchase of handmade gifts in lieu of those found at any traditional store, or her preference to make gifts rather than submit to “consumerism,” and with regard to her customers who will be using her yarn as handmade “gift raw materials,” there will be some lost value-added to the economy, value-added that the Canadian government could have taxed. (Something they really like to do up there in the Great White North.) But, I don’t suppose that relatively infinitesimal amount of lost value-added will show up as any negative numbers in any economic report. Unless, of course, this trend continues. But it would seem, at least to my tastes, that such a trend isn’t likely to catch fire anytime soon.

Each to his own, as they say. I suppose some folks like this sort of product, but I’ll just say that gifts of this type aren’t my cup of tea. Perhaps others find them attractive, but I would bet that that segment of the market isn’t very large.

And if that segment is actually very small, then big business doesn’t have much to worry about from this kind of anti-corporate movement strategy. Yet, I must say that I find this approach to anti-corporatism refreshing, maybe even tongue-in-cheek, and certainly one possessing much more character than the approaches used by pugnacious demonstrators.

Anyway, I wish Amelia the best with her yarn store and hope that her friends and family enjoy their gifts.

I’ll be back here on Telofski.com after the first of the year. In the meantime . . .

Happy Holidays.

Post to Twitter

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,

The Bully Pulpit of Activism

Dec 21

Posted by Richard in Activism, Anti-Corporatism, Strategy | No Comments

woman-covering-eyes-with-hands-uid-1284669By now the controversy of Climate Gate (climategate) is well-publicized and even starting to simmer down somewhat. Simmer down in the media that is, but perhaps not in the hearts and minds of those deep in the fray and on either side of the issue. Perhaps at this point, the global warming activists are licking their wounds and contemplating a strategic change and a new approach to framing their campaign. And if they aren’t, they should be. Here’s why.

Back on December 1 (09) there was an interesting article by Debra J. Saunders as posted on the San Francisco Chronicle site (SFGate.com). The article titled “When Scientists Behave Like Bullies” reviewed some of the known faux pas of the Climate Gate gaff – the deep six-ing of the contrary data, the threats of boycotts against scientific journals who printed articles countering the global warming theory, and the alleged threatened punch-out of anti-global warming skeptics. (Somehow I just can’t envision scientists getting into a rumble. Can you?) Overall, from her article Debra made a point that:

Polls show that Americans are cooling on the notion of man-made global warming. I must credit the bully mentality of activists, whose claims often defy common sense – and at times simple decency.

Never mind the great opening pun of that paragraph, she makes an excellent point which is . . .

Nobody likes a bully.

Even before Climate Gate we could see that the global warming movement was suppressing honest discourse on points of view contrary to their own. As activists for a cause, the global warming movement has certainly not been alone in using this strategy. Other activist organizations use bullying as well. But when bullying is recognized by the audience the activist wishes to win, counterproductive results may occur. Audiences are more keen observers than many activists realize. Bully-spotting is easy.

In my new and latest book, Insidious Competition - The Battle for Meaning and the Corporate Image, I discuss some strategies that are undertaken by some activists groups and talk about why those strategies, and their supporting tactics, are effective. Insidious Competition is due out in Spring 2010, so I don’t want to “reveal the ending.” But I can say now that bullying is not one of the strategies that I discuss in the book. And anticipating the publishing of my new, and fourth book, and to give you a clue as to what those wound-licking global warming activists should now be considering for a new strategic direction, I will say that as a model the wound lickers should look to the Mommy Bloggers.

Certainly not an activist organization per se, Mommy Bloggers still have many of the characteristics of true activist groups. They do many things to create effective messages and to get their points across, but one of the things they do not do is wield the bully pulpit. What strategic position do they take which makes them an effective proponent for almost any issue?

More on this idea as we get closer to publication date. Spring 2010 will be arriving soon.

Post to Twitter

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,

Who Says Doing the Right Thing is “Right?”

Dec 17

Posted by Richard in Activism, Anti-Corporatism | No Comments

Archetypes are ephemeral.

A couple days ago I finished a really great book, Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility by Sarah A. Soule. Although, I purchased this book while wanting to obtain more information about the structure of anti-corporate activism, I bought this book because I also wanted to get additional information on corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, which are often a knee-jerk response to anti-corporate activist initiatives. Believing that this book was oriented more toward my CSR hunt, and not toward the anti-corporate activism anatomy search, I thought, “Well, I’ll buy this one now while I continue to hunt down more works on the anatomy of anti-corporate activism.”

After receiving this book and jumping into the first chapter or two, I was pleasantly surprised. This book concerns itself more with the structure and process of anti-corporate activism than it does with the response of CSR. To this point, here is an excerpt from a review I wrote about this book. (The full review appears on both Amazon.com and on my Reading List page in my LinkedIn.com profile.)

Although I would have chosen a different title, Sarah Soule turns in a great book here. In this work, Sarah contributes one of the first academic examinations on the structure of anti-corporate activism and its effects on corporate behaviors . . . Sarah examines activist initiatives in two time periods: 1960 to 1990 and then from 1990 to present day (2009). Her findings characterize activism, as it affects the corporation, into two different groupings each with historical context, creating a typology by which corporate analysts can categorize activist efforts and devise mechanisms for coping. This typology can be invaluable to corporate analysts attempting to devise various strategies in response to various anti-corporate activist initiatives.

So, in the end, I received that which I sought, but in an indirect manner due to the abstractness of the book’s title.

Generally, I liked everything I found in the book such as her approach and her argumentation process, but on page 154 I found a comment with which I must take umbrage.

In the section entitled “The Impact of Anticorporate Activism on Corporations,” Sarah talks about the key theme of her book being that anti-corporate movements do matter to corporations. As evidence of this assertion, she points to an earlier discussion in the book citing research into the effects of protest on company stock price, as well as other examples of activist influence on corporations as discussed in the book. Of this influence she says,

“This is good news for activists, of course. But it is also good news for corporations who can find that doing the right thing can actually make good business sense.”

Here comes the umbrage.

The right thing? Who says it’s the right thing? This is an attitude that I have found in much anti-corporatist literature, one which automatically assumes that any activist action against a corporation is “right.” Right is not always right. To quote Bill Clinton, it would depends on “what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

“Right,” in this sense, is a subjective term, left widely open to interpretation. So, let’s go ahead and interpret it.

I have to criticize Sarah here. Throughout the book, I found that she was very objective and didn’t appear to lean to one side of the anti-corporate activist argument or the other. That is, until that phrase “doing the right thing” appeared on page 154. Perhaps a more objective way for her to say the same thing would have been “But it is also good news for corporations who can find that doing what the activists suggest can actually make good business sense.” Such sentence would have expressed the same thought while preserving her objectivity.

In many cases, yes, a “corporate social responsibility” response to an activist demand can make good business sense. Corporations should not eschew such demands wholesale. But in many cases corporate responses to activist demands do not make good business sense, yet those responses, “right” and “wrong,” are positioned under the CSR program, at the expense of the stockholders.

Who says doing the right thing is “right?” Who gets to interpret what is “right” in terms of what activist requests should be folded into the company’s CSR program? The answer to that question would turn on who is financing the company. That would be the stockholders. Not the stakeholders.

The stockholders. It’s their money which is at risk. And as long as society is still capitalistic, and at least for now in America this is still the case, then I believe that it is up to the stockholders to say whether doing the “right” thing actually makes good business sense. Or not.

Post to Twitter

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,

“Irregular Competition” – The Newest Threat

Dec 15

Posted by Richard in Anti-Corporatism, Irregular Competition | No Comments

abstract fiveCompetition comes in several classes. Let’ discuss.

First of all, you, as a business person, have obviously known about the class of “direct” competitors since you went into business, and probably you have known about this class of competitor as far back as those tender years when you were first able to sit up and recognize for what money was actually used. Direct competitors, of course, are those other companies which sell the same products or services that your own company sells.

Secondly, you’ve most likely known about the class of “indirect” competitors, also just about as long as you’ve known for what money is used. When you were a kid with five bucks burning a hole in your pocket, you knew that you could use that moolah to buy a toy or you could use it to buy a movie ticket or you could use it to buy an ice cream cone. None of the companies which produced those goods or that service were direct competitors, but they were indirect competitors vying for that five bucks in your pocket.

The classes of direct and indirect competition are not new. Business people have always taken seriously the impact of direct and even indirect competition, and have planned and altered their business models accordingly. This is well-known.

“Irregular Competition” Introduced

But what perhaps isn’t as well-known to you is the class of competition which I have named “irregular competition.” That is a term I coin and a concept which I define and introduce to you today.

When your direct and indirect competitors bring their offerings to market, they tell that market just how great are their offerings and how well those offerings can meet the needs and wants of the market targeted. And while making their sales pitch, those direct and indirect competitors play with the image of your company. Your competitors, direct and indirect alike, will take every opportunity to portray your company image in a manner that would not please you and by doing so communicate to your common market how well your products or services do not meet the needs of those consumers that you jointly serve.

Either through comparative advertising, or through innuendo, or via some other communications mechanism, your direct or indirect competition promotes the image of their own company and demotes the image of your company. Again, this is well-known. So if it’s well-known, why am I writing about it?

I write about this in order to make a point about competition in general, either direct or indirect, and to tie that point into the less well-known concept of “irregular competition.” Competition is not just about promoting competing products or services. It’s also about demoting, about tearing down, tearing down the image of the competitor. To tear down the image of a competitor means to battle for what the competitor’s company or brand image means, and to achieve an agendized goal in the process.

In the case of your direct and indirect competition, that agendized goal is to sell more products or services than does your company. The irregular competitor is similar in this regard; they have an agenda and a goal. But in the case of the irregular competitor, the nature of their agenda is different. The irregular competitor is not selling products or services. The irregular competitor wants to promote an advocacy agenda at the expense of your company. The irregular competitor wants to promote a program which has as its goal the attainment of some political, social, or cultural change. And one way the irregular competitor achieves its goal is by altering the meaning of your company or brand image in the marketplace.

The irregular competitor which I introduce today is more specifically known as the activist organization, the NGO (non-governmental organization), or the IGO (inter-governmental organization) which pursues an agenda of advocacy for a political, social, or cultural issue and in so doing competes with your company for the meaning of your brand or company image.

Why Would They Do This?

This irregular competition does this because they recognize that by attempting to influence, or even control, what your company or brand image means, the irregular competitor can use the notoriety of that image to achieve publicity and legitimacy for the cause that they pursue.

The irregular competitor is not interested in selling their own products or services that will replace those of your company’s in the marketplace. But they are interested in reducing the sale of your products or services, just as are your traditional direct or indirect competitors, in order to pressure your company into helping them achieve their political, social, or cultural goals.

Just As Much a Threat as the Regular Competitor

And because of their agenda and its intent, this irregular competition is no less a threat to your company than the direct or indirect competitor. Indeed, in many ways irregular competition may be more of a threat than the direct and indirect competitor. Therefore, the irregular competitor must be regarded with as much seriousness as the regular competitor.

The irregular competitor is here. They are not going away. They must be dealt with just as any other competitive threat should not be ignored. And it is within this blog, Telofski.com, that we will discuss the ins and outs of dealing with this new competitive threat in your business environment.

Post to Twitter

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,

Activism or Just Keeping Your Mouth Shut?

Dec 11

Posted by Richard in Activism, Trends | No Comments

An opinion article about childhood obesity and activism recently appeared in the The Daily Camera, the daily newspaper for Boulder, Colorado.

A little self-control makes the world go 'round?

The article was written by  J. Justin Wilson, who is the Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Consumer Freedom, (CCF) a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies and consumers to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices. Hmmm . . . could this organization be considered an activist organization themselves? Well, certainly if they are representing the interests of a particular business sector. Although, what I like in that description of the CCF is the promotion of “personal responsibility” as their stated primary goal. More of that sort of “PR” would do us all well.

In the article Justin refers to selected activist initiatives aimed at getting some state legislators to tax certain sugary foods, soft drinks in particular. Many of the usual arguments are made in Justin’s article. Such as this one, which for me personally is a bit hard to swallow. (pun intended) He cites no scientific link between soft drinks and childhood obesity. From his article:

There is no scientific consensus that sugary drinks are a unique cause of obesity. A scientific review published last year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition evaluated the evidence of 12 major studies and found virtually no association between the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and children`s weight. And an October study found no association between soda consumption and youth weight gain over a 5-year period.

I suppose the key term in that quote is “unique cause.” And you can argue from here to Sunday about whether or not there is a scientific cause underlying this particular issue. Perhaps the children studied don’t drink soda, although that idea seems almost as far-fetched as the idea that there is no association between sugar-sweetened soda and weight gain. (If that indeed is true, I going to drink myself silly with Coca-Cola.)

But that’s where I think Justin went wrong in his argument. He chose the scientific path as the main basis to support his argument. Science doesn’t always a good argument make, and I believe that is especially so when one is representing an activist group, er uh . . . excuse me, a non-profit coalition of businesses that supports personal responsibility. I feel that Justin’s argument would have been better made by hammering home as the central thrust of his article the principle of personal responsibility, because after all that’s the declared objective of his organization. Although in the article he did turn briefly to the idea of personal responsibility, his discussion of this form of “PR” was too late in the article and the point was not made nearly powerfully enough. I think he missed his chance here.

Well, hold on, now. Perhaps he didn’t make personal responsibility the central theme of the article because that is something kids have very little of. No kid is going to eschew soda for milk if given any opportunity. Or how about some parental responsibility and asking mom and dad to “just say no” when it comes to serving the kiddy bubbly? How about “pounding on” that personal responsibility point a lot more and asking for some shut mouths when it comes to soda consumption?

Oh, just a second. That’s right. There’s no “unique cause” between weight gain and soft drinks, even though if you “pound down” about five cans of the average soda you will have taken in enough calories for about a third of a pound of fat. (again, puns intended)

Could this be a case of activist vs. activist? With each of them bringing their own scientists into the battle? (You bring your test tube and I’ll bring mine.) A case of dueling DIYS (do-it-yourself-science)? Or is this simply an example of a lost opportunity to argue hardily that personal responsibility and keeping your mouth shut in the presence of soda is the best argument made against a trend of activism bent on taxing everything that moves?

You decide.

Post to Twitter

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,

Activist or Corporation. Who’s the Hero?

Dec 4

Posted by Richard in Activism, Anti-Corporatism, NGOs, Strategy | No Comments

People who keep all of these things moving are the real heroes.

People who keep all of these things moving are the real heroes.

Archetypes. Webster’s defines them as a “recurrent symbol in literature, art, or mythology.” With reference to psychology Webster’s continues by saying that, in regard to Jungian psychology, archetypes are “a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors,” images which are “supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.”

Ah, the collective unconscious. That’s the key to what makes us as a society tick.

Everything that happens depends on what makes us tick inside. And those who understand what makes us tick inside, get to control the flow of how things go. But what primitive images, exactly, are they that make us tick and contribute to the control of flow.

I’ve been reading about these archetypical images in a book by Paul Laudicina entitled World Out of Balance, Navigating Global Risks to Seize Competitive Advantage. On page 91 of this book, Paul names some of the archetypes:

Hero – implying the spirit of survival.
Outlaw – implying the spirit of rebellion.
Explorer – conveying the idea of the joy of discovery and freedom.

All positive qualities these are. Certainly, spirits with which most of us would want to be associated. Corporations and advertisers recognized these spirits and their power to influence decades ago. In his book, Paul gives several examples of corporate advertising campaigns which have employed, with great success, these and other archetypes. No wonder we sometimes find the appeals of those “Mad Men” so irresistible. They reach into our souls.

And the reaching into souls, i.e., the employment of the archetype, has not been lost on other types of organizations, some of whom operate at cross-purposes to those who have perfected its usage.

Over the past ten years, since The Battle in Seattle, anti-corporate activists have learned to leverage and co-opt well those principles of the archetype which their opponents had been using, with success, for some decades prior.

In promoting their environmental or labor or economic agendas, activists and their NGO cousins first assumed the role of Outlaw, attracting attention through the leveraging of the spirit of rebellion. They stood out from the rest of society and carved themselves a position outside the normal circle. A position envious to some who occupied the circle of the 9 to 5 grind.

But then, before they went too far outside the normal circle, the NGOs and activists pulled themselves back into the normal social circle by adopting another role, the role of Explorer. They told us they had been outside the circle because they were on a mission of discovery for all of us, and that they were not in it just for themselves. Not withstanding the validity of any of their scientific or economic analyses, NGOs and activist organizations by promoting their agendas with “supporting facts” ventured into issues in the “common interest,” making discoveries “affecting everyone” and trumpeting their own freedom to advocate for all.

When they had successfully communicated this message, in doing these things they then almost automatically had the role of Hero cast upon them by the “common interest.” The NGOs and activists were then seen as waging a selfless, non-profit battle moving toward survival for us all, against the “faceless,” “un-Herolike” for-profit corporation who uses archetypes primarily to portray only their products and services, presumably only for profit. The corporations made the mistake of attaching the archetypes to their products and services, to their profits, rather than to themselves and to what they actually do for society, for the actual common interest.

In such a battle for the archetype, who is likely to win? The Hero. The Outlaw. The Explorer. You think the NGO and activist. But yet, we and the corporation miss the point because the corporation is all of these.

Corporations make a lot of boneheaded mistakes, and since they are not perfect I am not blindly advocating them. (NGOs and activists aren’t left out of the boneheaded mistakes category, either.) Yet, who supplies the jobs so that we may feed our children? (Hero.) Who comes up with new products and services that solve our daily problems? (Explorer.) Outlaw? Well, maybe not. But two of three isn’t bad, especially the two that contribute so greatly to daily happiness.

But, perhaps just as their opponents used the principles of archetype to turn against them, corporations need to take a page from a playbook they actually wrote and use it to describe themselves, not their products and services, as the heroes and explorers that they actually are.

Post to Twitter

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes