The recent anti-capitalism demonstrations by Occupy Wall Street (whoever they may actually be) show a significant strategic weakness as compared to a similar business protest group which debuted earlier this year, US Uncut.
US Uncut, which was modeled after UK Uncut, is anti-capitalist in nature, but strategically they set the target of their protest as specific corporations, e.g. Bank of America among others. Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, set the target of their protest, I think, as just capitalism in general. (I say “I think” because their strategy was largely indiscernible.)
Audiences have more trouble relating to general concepts than they do with specifics, and it is in that way that US Uncut may be more strategically successful than Occupy Wall Street.
Greenpeace is using the “embarrass” strategy again. This time a New Zealand company is targeted.
In a Stuff.co.nz article titled “Fonterra Targeted in Spoof Greenpeace Ad,” the dairy company Fonterra Cooperative Group, which according to the article has an image as “a safe, environmentally ethical New Zealand producer,” is the latest target of Greenpeace in its palm oil campaign. This is a classic irregular competitor strategic targeting example, right out of the Saul Alinsky book “Rules for Radicals.”
One of the overarching strategies of Alinsky is to “embarrass” a corporate target. When companies position themselves as “environmentally-responsible” they are setting themselves up to be a target. With Murphy’s Law being what it is, no matter how hard they try, companies that tout the environmentally-responsible label are bound to make some mistakes here and there. And when they do, the activist will be there to point it out, regardless of whether the “mistake” is actually a mistake. To the activist in this strategy what is critical is whether the “mistake” can be positioned as one.
This Fonterra example is just another in long string, and should serve to inform companies seeking a counter-strategy against such moves by Greenpeace and other irregular competitors.
Does the Greenpeace CEO make more than the Exxon Mobil CEO?
Well, yes and no. In terms of absolute dollars, no. Not even close. But, in terms of a percentage of their respective organization’s revenue, yes. More. Very much more.
In terms of compensation as a percentage of revenue, the Greenpeace CEO pulls in considerably more than does his counterpart at Exxon Mobil.
Recently I performed research addressing this issue. The reason I performed this research was due to activist’s and NGO’s frequent claims that CEOs of multinational corporations (MNCs) take as compensation an unfair proportion of their companies’ overall revenue. After recently hearing this claim again, perhaps for about the 500th time, I wondered, “Who actually makes more in terms of percentage of revenue? Huge multinationals? Or NGOs?” I decided to do some digging, create a comparison, and take a look.
Methodology
Now, to address this question, what I decided to do was just take a “quick and dirty” look. I just wanted to test my theory with some trial research. Therefore, at the outset my intention was not to do an exhaustive study by including a large number of NGOs and MNCs in a representative and statistically controlled sample. When I began this research I decided that I would save that exhaustive study for another occasion should my theory be supported by the results of this “thumbnail” research project.
To commence my pilot research project, I simply selected, very much at random, one NGO and one multinational. The first two of each that came to mind were Greenpeace and Exxon Mobil. These two organizations are often at odds with each other and both are frequently in the news, making them top of mind.
To identify the revenues of Greenpeace I went to Guidestar.org. Guidestar is an organization which aggregates information about non-profit corporations. At their site, you may search for your non-profit of interest and find information you desire, much of it a no charge. One of the pieces of information stored by Guidestar is a non-profit’s US IRS Form 990.
The IRS Form 990 is a document that must be filed by all tax-exempt non-profit organizations operating within the United States. This document is much like a tax return and contains some information similar to what you would find in a for-profit corporation’s annual report or 10K filing. Among the information shown in a Form 990 is annual revenues and executive compensation. On the Guidestar site, I located Greenpeace’s Forms 990.
To obtain the revenue and executive compensation information for Exxon Mobil, I journeyed to SEC.gov, the site of the Securities and Exchange Commission for the United States. At that site, I accessed Exxon Mobil’s Schedule 14A Proxy Statement which contained summary compensation figures for Exxon Mobil executives for the years 2006 – 2008. Also available on that site was the Exxon Mobil 10K, containing the annual revenue figures that I sought. Additional information on Exxon Mobil’s revenue was obtained from their 2008 Annual Report available at Continue reading Greenpeace CEO Makes "More" Than Exxon CEO?
As I mentioned in my last post of last year, “The Warm and Fuzzy Side of the Anti-Corporate Movement,” I would be back on Telofski.com after the first of the year. And here I am. You are now reading the “2010 Season Premier.”
Happy New Year.
Around the time of my “2009 Season Finale,” I caught an article on FoxNews.com about a company called CREDO. The article, titled “Wireless Company Mixes Liberal Politics with Business,” intrigued me. Author Stephen Clark writes about this wireless phone company who positions itself as “an agent of social change.” Stephen says that “It (CREDO) pitches its mobile phone services with a vow to fight for ‘real’ health care reform, free speech, peace and the environment.”
Continuing from the article, CREDO has reported that it has raised $63 million for liberal causes such as Doctors Without Borders, Planned Parenthood, ACLU, and Earthjustice. That’s a lot of money to be finding its way to various advocacy groups, some of which aren’t very business-friendly.
In the article, the main theme is whether or not this type of business strategy is sustainable (no pun intended). Within the article are quoted marketing experts with some saying “yes” while others say “no.” The naysayers make their case by stating the obvious strategic view that running a company based on a political agenda will alienate too many potential customers. Additionally, the naysayers cite that a wireless company the size of CREDO, regardless of their positioning strategy, will have a difficult time up against such corporate giants as AT&T or Verizon. While, on the other side, the proponents say that given the level of political rancor and political polarization presently in the country, a “highly partisan” approach could be successful.
The naysayers seem to intimate that CREDO is crazy, in a marketing sense. And yes, I must say that I agree. I think that CREDO might be crazy, but crazy like a fox (again, no pun intended). I’d have to see some marketing research data on this question in order to be sure, but my WAG* on this would be that there is a large enough market segment out there for CREDO to attract, a segment consisting of the political partisanship to which CREDO orients, so that such a marketing strategy may have legs. My WAG is based on my estimate that there are probably at least tens of millions of far-left, or at least left-leaning, adults in the United States, all of which might prefer to send their monthly wireless dollars to a company which will use them to further a political agenda, rather than enrich stockholders.
If you read this blog regularly, you will know that my professional opinion is the opposite; I think companies should enrich stockholders and not causes. But this orientation is not the sort that motivates CREDO, nor the people in the market segment that they target. And it is their motivation, not mine, that is critical within
Continue reading An Activist Strategy to Bank On?
By 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
Continue reading The Bully Pulpit of Activism
For work I’ve been reviewing how some professionals use social media in the promotion of their services.
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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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