Introducing the panel on Counter-strategies of Corporations against
Campaigns Featuring: What are the modern-times strategies of present day
companies? And: How can we respond to these?

This part of the introduction includes a short outline of the themes to be
discussed at the forum. Being used are examples from the work of the
panelists and cases they have been working on. Also included are exerpts
from recent articles on the corporate world's reaction to social and
environmental cam-paigns, illuminating the main themes from different
points of view. References are included below, if you would like to
receive four further texts on this subject, please let me know:
evel@xs4all.nl

by Eveline Lubbers

The greatest threat to the corporate world's reputation comes from the
Internet, the pressure groups newest weapon. Their agile use of global
tools such as the Internet reduces the advantage that corporate budgets
once provided. Quoted is a PR-manager who is trying to teach
multinationals how to deal with modern day pressure groups, creatively
using the power of the media sound bite.

Losing control of the media arena as result of the activities of a
pressure group has become a nightmare scenario for the modern
multinational enterprise. Some corporations learn fast, from their critics
i.e. from us. This creates a big market for PR-companies that are hired to
change the worst scenario into a business opportunity.

What are the modern-times strategies of present day companies? How do
they respond to pressure groups or future campaigns?

Three main strategies can be distinguished:

1. Openness and co-optation 2. Monitoring and intelligence 3. Aggressive
PR, using legal threats, front groups and so called 'green-wash' tactics

What is the danger of these strategies?

1. Openness and co-optation

One of the tenets of the new Shell strategy based on openness and honesty
is the oil- multinationals' Internet site (http://www.shell.com) that was
launched early 1996, and renewed late 1998. 'Dialo-gue' is the core
concept, and sensitive issues are not sidestepped. The Shell Internet site
receives over 1,100 emails a month, a full-time staff member answers all
these mails personally and within forty-eight hours. There are links to
the sites of Shell's competitors and detractors, and also to progressive
social organizations. However, not to any critical organisations more
radical than Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace, but this aside. At the
site's discussion forums arranged by subject everybody is allowed a say
about Shell's practices. The question is of course whether this form of
openness really influences anything other than the company's pr-work! The
forums are not intended for people to question Shell. The email facility
is provided for that purpose, and visitors of the site are using it quite
intensively.

What the content is of the questions being asked, and the company's
answers to these, remains between Shell and the emailers. All in all, one
might conclude that this amounts to a fake openness, for show purposes
only. After all, in public true discussions are being eschewed. Shell
denies that the forums are merely window-dressing, functioning mainly as
barometer for what certain people think.

To co-opt the environmental debate is one side of the coin, to demonise
and marginalise the environmental movement is the other. One PR guru,
Rafael Pagan, has outlined a three step divide and conquer strategy on how
corporations can defeat public interest activists who apparently fall
into four distinct categories: radicals, opportunists, idealists
and realists. The goal is to isolate the radicals, cultivate
the idealists and 'educate them into becoming realists, then co-opt the
realists into agreeing with industry.The bottom line, says another
PR-specialist, is that if you dialogue with people, then you win. If you
meet a group that will not compromise, then you have a problem. One
recent classic example of this is the Uwa from Colombia who refused to
backtrack against oil development and even threatened suicide if
Occidental and Shell drilled on their land. It was the companies who
backed down.

2. Monitoring and intelligence

Losing control of the media arena as result of the activities of a
pressure group has become a nightmare scenario for the modern enterprise.
Shell was taken by complete surprise when the Greenpeace campaign against
sinking the Brent Spar former drill platform achieved its goals. A
comprehensive review of what has become known as the PR disaster of the
century indicates that Shell had it all wrong about its own influence on
the media. There was a new factor in the game, which had been completely
missed out: the role of the Internet. Ever since the Brent Spar debacle,
Shell sports an Internet manager who is convinced that listening to the
Internet community is an effective barometer of public opinion about your
company. The Shell Headquarters in London are making a thorough job of it.
Specialized, external consultants have been hired who scout the web daily,
inventorying all possible ways Shell is being mentioned on the net, and in
which context. In combination with real life intelligence gathering, from
open sources to covert actions like eaves dropping and infiltration (the
tiny London Greenpeace campaign against McDonald's had the honour of being
joined by at least seven covert agents) this results in lots and lots of
information. Strategic knowledge that can be used for various purposes in
order to disarm campaigners. The least harmfull -in a way- would be
tackling the aims of campaigners with a carefully balanced PR-campaign.
The surprise effect of a picket line or a sit-in can be countered if the
targeted corporation was aware of something coming on forehand. Winning
time and photo opportunities dealing with reluctant spokespeople and
clumsy CEO's is always good for sound bites in the mainstream media.
Without this surprise-effect, campaigners loose half of their means, so to
speak. Furthermore, the exchange of information between law enforcement,
gouvernmental intelligence services and corporate security gives the
investigating authorities extra opportunities to take their own
measurements to prevent people from potentially using civil disobedience
to stage public protest. This could vary from leaking damaging stories to
the popular press to playing people off against oneanother using intimate
knowledge about different points of view. Potentially more damaging are
tactics to stimulate to use of violence by campainers (f.i. through
infiltrators) to discredit their goals.

3. Agressive PR, using legal threats, greenwash tactics and front groups

The fear of legal threaths made the printers of The Ecologist decide to
destroy the entire print run of an issue of the magazine on biotechnology
and the Monsanto Corporation, September last year. After 29 years of
reliable partnership, the printers pulped the complete edition two days
before it was due to appear, without notifying the editors.The Monsanto
special was a direct response to the multinatinials large-scale
Europe-wide advertising campaign, in which the company proclaims, among
other things, that Food biotechnology is a matter of opinions. Monsanto
believes you should hear all of them. The magazine highlights Monsanto's
track record of social and ecological irresponsibility, and illustrates
its readiness to intimidate and quash those ideas, which conflict with its
immediate interests. (The issue opens with an article by HRH the Prince of
Wales on genetic engeneering Seeds of Disaster. Prince Charles gave his
permission for republication -it first appeared in the Daily Telegraph-
as a contextual introduction to this special issue). After 29 years of
reliable partnership with the printers, the editors of The Ecologist found
out that the printers had pulped the entire edition, two days before it
was due to appaer - without notifying them. After the magazine had found
another printer, the problems where not over yet. Two leading newsagents
in the U.K., WHSmith and John Menzies, decided not to sell the issue, for
fear of being sued. This incident demonstrates that Monsanto's reputation
of aggressive legal intimidation makes it difficult for the public to be
properly informed of the serious potential dangers of genetic engineering.
'Greenwash' is a special form of PR. The fossil fuels industry has, for
instance, treated climate

change as a PR-problem - it has funded so-called independent scientists
and formed green-sounding front groups, like the Global Climate
Coalition. In the run up to the Kyoto meeting late 1997, the GCC spent $
60 million dollars trying to persuade the public that they were not to
blame and justify a business as usual future. This AstroTurf lobbying (as
opposed to grass roots campaigning) has also occurred in Western Europe.
Publicly exposing the schemes of deceptive industry front groups has
largely diminished the success of this strategy in Germany. However
recently a lobby group has been actively rallying grassroots support
against wind energy sites near German towns. Their representatives are
even going as far as buying up houses at possible sites in order to stage
protest as local citizens. Public debates on local issues usually get
attention from regional media, but the story often doesn't make it on a
higher level. A week later, the same corporate PR organisation may emplay
the same astroturf methods at the other end of the country, but the whole
picture remains hidden from local people and national media. Astroturf
techniques are performed successfully also at the level of European
decision making in Brussels, in an arena that is very far from everyday
national debates, and from the local level.

Unless, of course, serious research uncovers this kind of strategies.

Agressive PR-campaigns can create a climate for violent attacks. In the
United States the constant promotion and use of the term 'ecoterrorist' by
anti-environmental campaigners has initiated a fear dynamic. Constant
references to 'ecoterrorism' makes the authorities and vested interests
begin to worry. The fear-dynamic provides ample job opportunities for
private security firms hired by companies that live by envorinmentally
destructive practices. It sets the stage for aggressive counter-reaction
and makes anti-environmental violence seem like an acceptable and
understandable response to a direct threat. It is impossible to quantify
the occurence of violence against environmental activists in America,
because violence is designed to silence. There are probably hundreds of
acts of intimidation that go unreported because perpetrators have
succeeded in their aim, using intimidation to 'chill' the environmental or
social critics concerned. It is mainly grassroots activists, miles from
the relative safety of big cities who are suffering the most. Very often
these activists are women, who are involved in local environmental
problems. Acivists who live in remote areas or in blighted neighbourhoods
are also singled out for attack. Furthermore, the support these
'front-line' activists are receiving from the mainstream environmental
movement has been verging on non-existent. Not speaking out against
violence isolates people and makes it safer to attack them.

What can be done to diminish the effects of these Counterstrategies?

Knowledge of corporate PR strategies may help activists and concerned
citizens to recognise manipulative strategies and distinguish them from
industry behaviour that are truly indicative of

change. Understanding corporate strategies enables people, when necessary,
to organise effectively against them.

Action groups could set up public data banks on persons involved in
'two-step-communication' (the use of third parties) 'front organisations'
and on corporate-instituted 'grass root organisations'. These could help
them expose publicly the most active corporate front-people and
organisations in the media. Campaigners could institute an annual
competition for the best 'corporate camouflage' of the year.

The N5M Counter-strategies panel discussion.

The Counter-strategies panel will have a strategic focus on corporate
communication: what PR- tools are being developed as a response to a
changing society and to the particularities of new media? How do these
tools aim to affect public opinion? How has communication evolved to fit
in with modern society and values? What are the consequences for the
public?

As an example, an insight into the Monsanto 1998 PR campaign will be
presented, from a PR consultant's point of view. New strategic efforts in
communication with the aim to get biotechnology accepted will be analysed:
targeting children, the 'informed decision' and the use of 'invisible
corporations'.

The aim should be fitting in with campaigners' experiences, help develop a
better understanding on corporate strategies and serve to stimulate ideas
on how communication may be used by activists to find effective answers.
Tactical research is a key strategic weapon for activists. Not only should
they investigate acts of violence and expose the desinterest of the law
enforcment authorities. The 'green private investigator' speaking at the
N5M panel teaches how to research corporations' practices by following the
right leads. Let's not forget that most corporations still see the use of
new media as a threat to which they don't know how to respond. On line
communities are developing, and so is their horizontal communication.
Companies tend only to think about vertical communications - pushing out
brand messages and treating consumers as if they exist in a vacuum. The
lesson that brand owners are about to learn is that the web is an
increasingly powerful cultural phenomenon. Activists have been a step
ahead of the 'web game' but this medium is becoming more closed and
controlled very fast.Let's use the Internet to it's full potential while
this is still possible and continue to develop new creative ways to
communicate, exchange information and involve those who need this
information.

The Counterstrategy panel:

* Helen Holder (GB), working for the Monsanto Round Up campaign, a project
of ASeed-Europe based in Amsterdam; as a former PR-consultant she is
specialized in corporate strategies. * Sheila O'Donnell (USA), the 'green
PI' investigates violence against environmentalists in the USA, and
teaches activists in tactical research. * Claudia Peter (G), author of
'Deckmantel Okologie', about AstroTurf strategies in Germany is
researching lobbying strategies at a local level in Germany and at a
high-level in Brussels. * Andy Rowell (GB), author of 'Green Backlash,
Global Subversion of the Environmental Movement', and is specialized in
corporate PR and the strategies being used by companies (Monsanto and
Shell) against activists.

Moderator: Eveline Lubbers (NL), monitoring police and secret services
since the eighties, supporting social activist groups against oppressive
surveillance tactics of authorities. Recently she specialized in corporate
intelligence and PR-strategies of multinationals against their critics-
including net- activists.

Special thanks to Josselien Janssens (NL), Greenpeace researcher on the
'Green Backlash' project (London 19941996), currently studying at the
Academy for Communications, Hogeschool Holland.

References:

Articles on the same subject by Eveline Lubbers:
* Counterstrategies against netactivism. Shell is afraid of Internet.
at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~evel/brenteng.htm
* Shell is making the same mistake. Chad a second Nigeria?
at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~evel/chad.htm
* Beat the Dutch! Netactivism in Amsterdam.
at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~evel/beat.htm

* Andrew Rowell, Green Backlash, the Global Subversion of Environmental
Activists, Routledge 1996

* David Helvarg, The War against the Greens, Sierra Club books, 1994

*Judith Richter Engeneering of Consent, Uncovering Corporate PR
a briefing paper on the Nestlé Counterstrategy against babymilk-campaigners,
The Cornerhouse, March 1998

* Matthew Reed, Activists are using the Internet to fight large companies
over ethical issues. Yet

many major brand-owners lack a clear counter-strategy. Marketing
Magazine, 2/5/99, at http://193.133.103.27/feature99/0204a/0204a.htm

* Monsanto Round Up Campaign at: http://www.antenna.nl/aseed/monsanto
(under construction, Feb 1999)

* John Stauber/Sheldon Rampton, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, Lies, Damn
Lies And The Public Relations Industry, Common Courage Press, 1995

* Laurie Flynn, Michael Gillard and Andy Rowell, Ousted scientist and the
damning research into food safety, on the tests on rats that raised
serious questions about the effects of genetically modified food on
internal organs The Guardian, February 12 1999This story with its related
links on the News Unlimited site, at: http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk
(registration required).

* Rowell (GB), author of 'Green Backlash, Global Subversion of the
Environmental Movement', and is specialized in corporate PR and the
strategies being used by companies (Monsanto and Shell) against activists.