JD Schlough is the President and CEO of Well & Lighthouse, a strategic digital communications firm that facilitates digital communication strategy development. In this Reigning in the Bulls episode, JD describes how the digital marketing strategy has evolved over time from earned media to using platforms like TikTok, SnapChat, and other networks to achieve multi-channel, integrated broadcasting of content. He discusses the change from top down communication tactics to more distributed bottom up communication tactics. He also discussed the key factors that determine the media strategy and provides examples of digital campaigns that were particularly effective and why.
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As Amplify Eco’s Chief Strategist, Pam Wellner helps organizations focused on sustainability and economic justice by developing effective programs and communications campaigns. In this Reining in the Bulls episode, Michael and Pam discuss developing communications strategy and managing media for effective corporate ethics campaigns.
This podcast explores the evolution of the digital track of corporate campaigns which began with online petition gathering and now is much more targeted on influencing particular audiences. Vojtech Sedlak discusses the ladder of engagement his organization follows. It might begin with collecting signatures on a petition but escalates to writing letters and other actions.
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This podcast focuses on the paper industry which is among the largest drivers of forest destruction.
Large scale clearcutting and the conversion of natural forests to plantations for paper production devastates watersheds and biodiversity. The International Paper campaign was a 13 year effort targeting the largest U.S. corporate paper consumers and producers, such as Staples, Office Depot and International Paper, to increase protection for diverse forests in the Southern US and Canada.
This campaign’s diverse strategy, told to us by Danna Smith, included partnerships with other NGOs and stakeholders, grassroots organizing and protests in front of stores, strategic ads and communications to generate media coverage, shareholder and insider tracks, and tenacity at the negotiations table. It is considered one of the seminal corporate campaigns of the last 30 years.
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This podcast delves into the history of campaigns against hospital chains.
Gary Cohen provides a history of the evolution of the organization from battles against various hospital chains on issues like incineration of waste and use of mercury to an international network of organizations attacking a broad range of issues. He talks about the process of building other NGO alliances to expand their campaigns to companies that provided unhealthy products to hospitals and retailers that sold those products.
In both instances, they convinced companies to alter their practices and/or products. Importantly, he talks about how Healthcare Without Harm leveraged its network of allies to influence national and international policies. Gary describes how the campaign moved from exclusively an adversarial relationship with hospital chains to a consultative one where those chains would seek advice on safer medical and building products to use. Healthcare Without Harm is the quintessential model of the potential of corporate campaigns to transform the marketplace and ultimately national and international policies.
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This podcast explores the power of the Mind the Store campaign to eliminate toxic ingredients from consumer products. The campaign targeted companies like the Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware and others, and used a variety of tracks including shareholder, field and legal.
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This podcast tells the story of the Great Bear Rainforest Campaign.
Tzeporah Berman talks in separate interviews about the strategies for two seminal campaigns that focused on protecting old growth forests in Canada: The Victoria’s Secret Catalog Campaign and the Great Bear Rainforest Campaign
The Great Bear Rainforest is one of the largest intact old growth temperate rainforests in the world. In the 1990’s the majority of the rainforest was slated to be roaded and clearcut logged. This campaign used the power of customers of Canadian wood and paper products to stop logging in intact valleys and create space for a solutions process with the provincial government, logging companies and indigenous nations.
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This podcast focuses on the global impact of the Victoria’s Secret Catalog Campaign.
Tzeporah Berman talks in separate interviews about the strategies for two seminal campaigns that focused on protecting old growth forests in Canada: The Victoria’s Secret Catalog Campaign and the Great Bear Rainforest Campaign.
Victoria’s Secret was creating a million catalogs a day primarily from old growth forests in Canada. The campaign resulted in the first sustainable procurement policy from a catalog company and created leverage for a large corporate and government moratorium and solutions project on logging in endangered species habitat.
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This podcast peeks behind the influential Beyond Coal Campaign.
In the early 2000’s, existing coal plants in the United States were the single biggest source of greenhouse gases in the nation as well as the single biggest source of mercury pollution and toxic water pollution.
As a result, they were the single biggest contributor to climate change. The grassroots network of advocates that eventually became the Beyond Coal Campaign and its many partners succeeded in blocking the construction of 200 proposed US coal plants, secured retirement of two-thirds of existing US coal plants, helped usher in the clean energy era, and inspired the launch of sister Beyond Coal Campaigns around the world. The Beyond Coal Campaign has been recognized as one of the most successful environmental campaigns in history. Learn more about how that was accomplished in this podcast with Mary Anne Hitt.
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This podcast looks at the significance and impact of shareholder activism to push companies to assess, report and improve their environmental policies and practices.
Companies need to be responsible for and reduce their carbon pollution not only in their own operations and sourcing, but in the companies whose materials they use to make their products, which is referred to as full value chain or Scope 3 emissions.
In this campaign, Leslie Samuelrich and her team successfully pressed Costco to do this and set the precedent for this new shareholder resolution, and many other companies to do the same.
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This interview with Toben Dilworth, Art director of the Rainforest Action Network, explores the power of using art, images and video in campaigns. Toben shares examples and lessons learned through the use of images in corporate campaigns.
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This podcast introduces 350.org’s fossil fuel divestment campaign.
In the podcast May Boeve talks about the link between climate change and fossil fuel investments, and the moral and economic argument for divesting from fossil fuels.
The fossil fuel divestment movement exists to demonstrate that if it’s wrong to cause climate change, it’s wrong to profit from it. It seeks to divest banks, pension funds, endowments, and beyond from oil, coal, and gas. The impact is now measured not only in the tens of trillions divested globally, but also in the growth of the fossil free investment products industry; the thousands of leaders trained as divestment organizers; and the diminished social license of the fossil fuel industry.
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This podcast introduces the US Tar Sands campaign network.
In the podcast, Michael discusses strategy and tactics with Kenny Bruno, who was the US campaign coordinator of the bi-national campaign with Canada.
“We aimed to stop the reckless and rapid expansion of the dirtiest project on earth, the tar sands industry in Alberta. One of the main strategies was to delay and prevent permitting of tar sands pipelines like Keystone XL, Northern Gateway, Energy East, Line 3 and Transmountain. We did stop Keystone XL, Northern Gateway and Energy East. Enbridge expansions of Alberta clipper and Line 3 were built. We impacted the tar sands industry in Canada, by constraining takeaway capacity and forcing policy change in Canada. The Keystone XL campaign also ignited a new fighting spirit in the US climate movement and a new focus on fossil fuel infrastructure.”
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This podcast features Stacy Malkan, the Communications Director of the the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics which targeted the largest cosmetic and personal care product companies such as Johnson & Johnson, OPI, Estee Lauder, and Procter & Gamble.
“We analyzed and reported on toxic chemicals in everyday products, pressured companies to reformulate, and engaged women across the political spectrum in lobbying to reform cosmetic and chemical laws.”
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In this podcast, Electica’s Jim Arkedis shares his insights on online corporate campaign strategy and tactics, from social media to ads on YouTube and streaming services, and how they have evolved over the last 20 years.
Electica is a digital advertising technology company, spanning the US, UK, EU, and other countries around the world.
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This podcast takes an inside look at the Challenging Big Tobacco Campaign which began in 1993 and targeted Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco and British American Tobacco.
Tobacco addiction, disease and death is a preventable global epidemic that kills millions of people each year.
Kathy Mulvey explains: “This campaign challenged tobacco transnationals to stop addicting new customers around the world and stop interfering in public policy. The campaign helped stop abusive tobacco marketing and promotional tactics, forced the tobacco industry to pay billions of dollars in health care costs, and contributed to the development and swift adoption of the first global health and corporate accountability treaty.”
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This podcast looks at the Levi Strauss Campaign on Clean Renewable Energy also known as the “Too Dirty to Wear Campaign”.
Calculations range from 5% to 8% that the fashion sector is responsible for that amount of global emissions.
The goal of the campaign, as told by Todd Paglia, was to pressure Levi’s to be a fashion industry leader in protecting our climate by reducing pollution and transitioning to renewable energy in its entire supply chain. The ultimate goal was to force Asian countries to shift away from high carbon emission coal-fired power plants to clean energy alternatives.
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This podcast focuses on tackling the issue of deforestation within the palm oil industry.
Palm oil had destroyed more than 30,000 square miles of forest across Southeast Asia.
It had destroyed habitat for tens or hundreds of thousands of orangutans and other endangered wildlife. The destruction of these ultra carbon rich peatlands was spewing carbon dioxide at the atmosphere, and there was very little going on to address it. Glenn Hurowitz retells how, as a result of this campaign, on December 5th, 2013, Wilmar announced the strongest forest and human rights policy of any major agribusiness. It banned deforestation, conversion of peatland and exploitation of indigenous communities throughout its global supply chains.
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This podcast focuses on the importance of framing and telling a compelling campaign story.
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This podcast focuses on a campaign targeting insurance companies that insure fossil fuel companies and projects.
The fossil fuel industry really depends on insurance. Unlike many other financial institutions, insurers are the professional risk managers of society.
Insurers have always been concerned about climate risks. And yet, when The Sunrise Project started their Insure Our Future Campaign, insurers were still insuring new coal, oil and gas projects. Peter Bosshard discusses how the campaign wanted to make use of this vulnerability and push critically important actors to put their money where their mouths are. The Sunrise Project is an international campaign group working to accelerate the shift of capital from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources by targeting the financial and insurance industries and getting them to stop ensuring new coal projects and new oil and gas projects
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This podcast introduces Payal Sampat and the No Dirty Gold Campaign.
Gold mining is one of the most destructive industrial activities on the planet. It leaves communities with human rights abuses, contaminated drinking water, and degraded ecosystems.
Gold isn’t the sparkling symbol of love and affection when it is also associated with, and has come at the price of human rights abuses, indigenous rights violations, poisoned water, air and land. This campaign targeted major jewelry companies such as Cartier, Tiffany and Company, Zales in the U.S. to draw attention to this issue and to pressure them to require their gold suppliers to meet “the Golden Rules” which over 100 jewelry companies publicly committed to do over the course of the campaign.
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This podcast explores the influence and impact that employees can have on the company they work for.
In this case, the company is Amazon and the campaign was “Amazon Employees for Climate Change”.
In the podcast, we hear from Eliza Pan who talks us through the employee-led effort to get Amazon to report on its climate emissions and to have a plan in place to address its climate impact across the whole company. It utilized a shareholder resolution, petitions, and direct actions – a walkout – which led Amazon to issue its Climate pledge, a comprehensive company-wide plan about its emissions.
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This podcast tells the story of the influential “1in5” and “Go Time” campaigns targeting the five biggest US tech companies: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon.
Both Bill Weihl and Jennifer Allyn were in this interview, with Bill providing his input via chat, and Jennifer Allyn spoke on their behalf.
Bill Weihl’s vocal chords have been impacted by ALS but his voice is still louder on climate policy (in his words) “than that of the huge, mega-powerful, multi-billion-dollar global companies that claim to care so deeply about saving our planet.” In this podcast, they discuss the campaigns “1in5” (2020) and “Go Time” (2021-2022), both which focused on the five biggest US tech companies: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon – to get them to prioritize climate policy in their top five policy priorities and use their influence and lobbying budgets on the policy debate.
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This podcast focuses on the Rainforest Action Networks’ campaigns against rainforest destruction when Michael Brune became the program director at Rainforest Action Network.
This campaign targeted Citigroup because at the time, Citigroup was the world’s largest bank, and RAN found that in many industries, Citi was the largest financier of projects that were helping to degrade or destroy tropical forests.
“We knew that banks were providing loans or project financing that were helping to facilitate the destruction of old growth forests and old growth rainforests in particular, all around the world. We would highlight specific instances of Citi financing that were having a big impact on forests and human rights and climate change and ask them to take systemic action to prevent those kinds of instances in the future. This campaign led to the development of the Equator Principles which serve as a common baseline and risk management framework for financial institutions to identify, assess and manage environmental and social risks when financing projects.”