What are the key leverage points to get these companies to listen to campaigners such as yourself? How does this differ from the animal right space and how will this affect your strategy? What do you have in terms of strategy documents or theory of change?
Some thoughts on my mind are:
To the best of my understanding the animal rights corporate campaigning space is unable to exert much or any influence on B2B (business to business) companies. Animal campaigns only appear to have influenced B2C (business to consumer) companies. An autonomous coding agent feels more B2B and by analogy having any influence here could be extremely difficult. That said I don’t think this should be a huge problem as...
The leverage points for influencing companies in the AI space is very different to the animal space. In particular AI companies are probably much more concerned about losing employees to other companies than food companies. I expect they are also likely concerned about regulation that could restrict their actions. I expect there much less concerned about public image. As such..
This does suggest to somewhat different approach to corporate campaign. Potentially targeting employees more (although probably not picking on individuals) and greater focus on presenting the targeted company negatively to regulators/policymakers or to investors, more than to the public.
This is just quick thoughts and I might be wrong about much of this. I just wanted to flag as your post seemed to suggest that this work would be similar to work in the animal space and in many ways it is but I think there’s a risk of not seeing the differences. I wish you all the best of luck with your campaigning.
Thanks for the comment! I agree with a lot of your thinking here and that there will be many asymmetries.
One random thing that might surprise you: in fact, the sector that animal groups have had the most success with is a B2B one: foodservice providers. For B2B companies, individual customers are fewer in number and much more important in magnitude — so the prospect of convincing, for example, an entire hospital or university to switch their multi-million dollar contract to a competitor with a higher standard for animal welfare is especially threatening. I think the same phenomenon might carry over to the tech industry. However, even in the foodservice provider case, public perception is still one of the main driving factors (i.e., universities and hospitals care about the animal welfare practices of their suppliers in part because they know their students/clients care).
Your advice about outreach to employees and other stakeholders is well-taken too :) Thanks!
To be clear I would consider the target of the campaign in those cases to be on the hospital or the university and those to be B2C organizations in some meaningful way.
Huh, interesting! I guess you could define it this way, but I worry that muddies the definition of “campaign target.” In common usage, I think the definition is approximately: what is the institution you are raising awareness about and asking to adopt a specific change? A simple test to determine the campaign target might be “What institution is being named in the campaign materials?” or “What institution has the power to end the campaign by adopting the demands of the campaigners?”
In the case of animal welfare campaigns against foodservice providers, it seems like that’s clearly the foodservice companies themselves. Then, in the process of that campaign, one thing you’ll do is raise awareness about the issue among that company’s customers (e.g. THL’s “foodservice provider guide” which raised awareness among public institutions), which isn’t all that different from raising awareness among the public in a campaign targeting a B2C company.
I suppose this is just a semantic disagreement, but in practice, it suggests to me that B2B businesses are still vulnerable, in part because they aren’t insulated from public opinion—they’re just one degree removed from it.
EDIT: Another, much stronger piece of evidence in favor of influence on B2B: Chicken Watch reports 586 commitments secured from food manufacturers and 60 from distributors. Some of those companies are functionally B2C (e.g. manufacturing consumer packaged goods sold under their own brand) but some are clearly B2B (e.g. Perdue Farms’ BCC commitment).
What are the key leverage points to get these companies to listen to campaigners such as yourself? How does this differ from the animal right space and how will this affect your strategy? What do you have in terms of strategy documents or theory of change?
Some thoughts on my mind are:
To the best of my understanding the animal rights corporate campaigning space is unable to exert much or any influence on B2B (business to business) companies. Animal campaigns only appear to have influenced B2C (business to consumer) companies. An autonomous coding agent feels more B2B and by analogy having any influence here could be extremely difficult. That said I don’t think this should be a huge problem as...
The leverage points for influencing companies in the AI space is very different to the animal space. In particular AI companies are probably much more concerned about losing employees to other companies than food companies. I expect they are also likely concerned about regulation that could restrict their actions. I expect there much less concerned about public image. As such..
This does suggest to somewhat different approach to corporate campaign. Potentially targeting employees more (although probably not picking on individuals) and greater focus on presenting the targeted company negatively to regulators/policymakers or to investors, more than to the public.
This is just quick thoughts and I might be wrong about much of this. I just wanted to flag as your post seemed to suggest that this work would be similar to work in the animal space and in many ways it is but I think there’s a risk of not seeing the differences. I wish you all the best of luck with your campaigning.
Thanks for the comment! I agree with a lot of your thinking here and that there will be many asymmetries.
One random thing that might surprise you: in fact, the sector that animal groups have had the most success with is a B2B one: foodservice providers. For B2B companies, individual customers are fewer in number and much more important in magnitude — so the prospect of convincing, for example, an entire hospital or university to switch their multi-million dollar contract to a competitor with a higher standard for animal welfare is especially threatening. I think the same phenomenon might carry over to the tech industry. However, even in the foodservice provider case, public perception is still one of the main driving factors (i.e., universities and hospitals care about the animal welfare practices of their suppliers in part because they know their students/clients care).
Your advice about outreach to employees and other stakeholders is well-taken too :) Thanks!
Thank you for considering my comments
To be clear I would consider the target of the campaign in those cases to be on the hospital or the university and those to be B2C organizations in some meaningful way.
Huh, interesting! I guess you could define it this way, but I worry that muddies the definition of “campaign target.” In common usage, I think the definition is approximately: what is the institution you are raising awareness about and asking to adopt a specific change? A simple test to determine the campaign target might be “What institution is being named in the campaign materials?” or “What institution has the power to end the campaign by adopting the demands of the campaigners?”
In the case of animal welfare campaigns against foodservice providers, it seems like that’s clearly the foodservice companies themselves. Then, in the process of that campaign, one thing you’ll do is raise awareness about the issue among that company’s customers (e.g. THL’s “foodservice provider guide” which raised awareness among public institutions), which isn’t all that different from raising awareness among the public in a campaign targeting a B2C company.
I suppose this is just a semantic disagreement, but in practice, it suggests to me that B2B businesses are still vulnerable, in part because they aren’t insulated from public opinion—they’re just one degree removed from it.
EDIT: Another, much stronger piece of evidence in favor of influence on B2B: Chicken Watch reports 586 commitments secured from food manufacturers and 60 from distributors. Some of those companies are functionally B2C (e.g. manufacturing consumer packaged goods sold under their own brand) but some are clearly B2B (e.g. Perdue Farms’ BCC commitment).
No this seems more than just semantic. It does seem like I’ve underestimated the ability to influence B2B companies. I stand corrected. Thank you.