Early next year an academic article, which I co-authored along with three professors from the University of Southampton (UK), will publish in Voluntas, the International Journal of Voluntary and Non-Profit Organizations. The subject of the article is about how companies can more effectively deal with irregular competition. I’ll post more about the article as the publication date nears, but for today the topic I’d like to address is the power of irregular competition.
I opened this post by mentioning the academic article because during the publication submission process for the article, one of the three reviewers commented that the civil society organizations to which we referred in the article weren’t really competitors to business. (The other two reviewers, by the way, thought the idea of “irregular competition” as applied to NGOs and activists who engage companies was an intriguing concept.) If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll understand that NGOs and activist organizations which vie with companies for what those companies stand are indeed competitors. Per the definition of irregular competition that appears on Telofski.com, these organizations primarily:
attempt to influence, or even control, what a company or brand image means, by employing the notoriety of a company’s reputation to achieve publicity and legitimacy for the agenda that the irregular competitor pursues.
In other words, these organizations “compete” for the “meaning” of the company targeted. And they usually do so via disparagement.
A competition it is indeed. If it wasn’t then why would some of the companies currently targeted by major irregular competitors be spending significant funds on television image advertising?
Take for instance Exxon Mobil, which has been targeted by Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and others over the controversial oil sands project in Canada. This project is slated to send its oil via pipeline through the United States. Exxon recently released the video shown below and has been running it heavily in many television markets across the United States.
Or another example of a company targeted by various activist groups would be Asia Pulp & Paper. This Indonesian business has been at the center of the palm oil controversy driven by, again, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and others. AP&P commercials (one of which is shown below) have been running on various American television networks.
So, if the organizations in opposition to the oil sands project, those competing for the meaning of the project and for the meaning of Exxon’s involvement in it, or the organizations in opposition to palm oil harvesting, those competing for the meaning of AP&P’s image, were not a significant competitive force against Exxon and AP&P, then why would Exxon and AP&P bother spending considerable sums on advertising their own point of view?
Competitors? Yes, Mr. Reviewer. Yes, indeed.
A government that does an end-run around the spirit of its own laws? And by exploiting green activists in the process? Impossible, you say? Then perhaps you believe that there was no gambling a Rick’s Café Americain?
A recent opinion column, titled “The Multinationals’ Dilemma — Gratify the Greens or Protect the Poor?” and written by James M. Roberts of The Heritage Foundation, made these very assertions, but without the tongue-in-cheek suggestion of disbelief. In his article, Mr. Roberts discusses many different issues, perhaps too many for the space allotted him, the foremost of which is the issue of how multinational corporations may actually damage economic progress when they acquiesce to the protest demands of various activist groups. This is a complicated and controversial issue, one which I have often discussed on this blog. But, this issue is not the topic of today’s post.
Rather, the topic of today’s posts is one of the minor issues as raised by Mr. Roberts in his opinion article. That issue is the financing of activist groups by governments and the reason for such financing. I previously dealt with this topic in my April 2010 post “Nice Work . . . If You Can Get It? Friends of the Earth Does.”
In that post, I noted that in 2008 Friends of the Earth Europe received over 50% of its annual income from a European government grant. Of their €1.5 million budget for that year, Friends of the Earth Europe received €790,000 in the form of a grant from the Directorate General Environmental, the environmental commission of the European government. (Figures per the International Policy Network (IPN). Please see my previous post for full citation.) As I said in the title of that previous post, nice work if you can get it, eh? For sure. But what’s even more interesting is the reason for the awarding of such financing.
On May 24, 2010, CNN.com ran a story entitled “Social Media Can Help Save the Planet, says Greenpeace Boss.” There are two problems in this article. The first problem is with the accuracy of the reporting. The second problem is with how Greenpeace now looks at social media. The first problem you and I will discuss today in this post. The second problem you and I will discuss in next Tuesday’s post entitled “Greenpeace . . . Will You Use ‘Semantical Terrorism’ in Social Media?”
Regarding the first problem, the CNN article recalled the social media campaign that Greenpeace ran against Nestlé earlier this year. (For a review of this campaign, you may read my article series entitled “The Kit Kat Incident.”) The CNN article states that “Central to the Greenpeace campaign was an online video posted in March — a mock Kit Kat chocolate bar advert that shows an office worker biting into a bloody orangutan’s finger instead of a piece of chocolate.” The article then states “Less than a month after the video was first shown, Nestlé stopped all purchase of palm oil from Sinar Mas, one company Greenpeace claimed was causing deforestation in Indonesia.” The implication is that the social media campaign, extending over several weeks and led by the video, was responsible for causing Nestlé’s reaction.
That’s not exactly correct.
I studied The Kit Kat Incident in great detail and watched it as it unfolded over several weeks. The protracted campaign was not the cause of Nestlé’s acquiescence to Greenpeace’s demands. How do I know that? I know that because on the same day that the Greenpeace social media campaign began, literally within hours, Nestlé agreed to the terms set out by Greenpeace. The extensive and prolonged social media campaign was not the cause of the shift in Nestlé behavior, although Greenpeace claims it to be, and most of the mainstream media through sloppy research backs them up. In support of this point, you may read the chronology of this event, well-researched and linked to supporting documents, by going to my article entitled “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” with particular attention given to the section entitled “The Acquiescent Result.”
Yet, Greenpeace appears to be congratulating themselves on a social media campaign well-run. (Actually, tactically it could have been better run and my Kit Kat article series points out some of their gaping mistakes.) But, this is not to say that such a campaign could be ineffective. Quite the contrary. And in next Tuesday’s post,”Greenpeace . . . Will You Use ‘Semantical Terrorism’ in Social Media?,” you and I will discuss how Greenpeace now appears to view this version of an online strategy.
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Continue reading Greenpeace, CNN, and Sloppy Research
My article from last week, “Rainforest Action Network . . . Does Indoctrination Count,?” drew a bit of attention on this blog. That article was the first in a case study series on how Rainforest Action Network involves children in its various anti-corporate campaigns. Today’s post is the second article in that series.
Below you’ll see a link to a Rainforest Action Network video that appears on YouTube.com, in the Rainforest Action Network channel. This video involves a toddler, to the seeming confusion of his mother, in declaring, toward the end of this 48 second video, that he doesn’t want any “rainforest destruction” in his cereal.
I’m assuming that this young man was a child actor hired for this specific RAN video. I assume this because I don’t realistically believe that any toddler is going to utter the words “rainforest destruction” of their own choosing. So, my question becomes:
Is using child actors appropriate in a politically-motivated campaign?
And, yes, this is politics. Private politics is the process of “collective interactions between parties attempting to advance their interests that do not rely on the law, public order, or the state.” (Source: Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility, p. 30.) NGOs practice private politics when they engage a company to get the company to change its behavior. In the RAN campaign of which this video is a part, RAN is attempting to affect a change in General Mills’ (the maker of Cheerios) purchases of palm oil, an ingredient in their cereals.
Concerning the above question, you’ve probably guessed my opinion, especially if you have read the previous post in this case study series, “Rainforest Action Network . . . Does Indoctrination Count?”
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Here is another thought regarding The Kit Kat Incident, about which I blogged earlier today. So far in the blogosphere, or in the mainstream media, I haven’t seen this concern raised as yet.
Greenpeace’s argument over palm oil and image attack on Nestlé has been tactically oriented toward the Kit Kat bar. (Please see my previous post, “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” for a synopsis of this direct action/PR event.) Nestlé produces the Kit Kat bar internationally, but Nestlé does not produce the Kit Kat bar in the United States. In America, the Kit Kat bar is produced by Hershey who, at least at the time of this writing, is not being targeted by Greenpeace.
Greenpeace has not made this distinction abundantly clear. Yes, they did note this difference on their initial call-to-action page. But their notation was extremely tiny, brief, and at the bottom of the page. And in subsequent Greenpeace Web sites posts and actions in social media, I am hard-pressed to find further references to this distinction between Nestlé and Hershey as it relates to the production of the Kit Kat bar. Clearly, this situation represents a business threat to Hershey.
So, this situation begs four questions:
Concerning Hershey, is this a responsible way to conduct an anti-corporate direct action?
In the form of lost sales, will there be “collateral damage” against Hershey, who at this point in the protest appears to be an innocent by-stander?
If there is collateral damage, will it form a basis of legal action against Greenpeace?
And if a legal basis is formed, will Hershey pursue it?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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About  Here at " Richard Telofski on The War on Capitalism," I discuss and analyze the individuals and groups conducting campaigns against capitalism. In the articles on this site, I provide analysis on lesser known facts about this movement. More . . .
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