Protesters target firms with liberal outlooks

Companies that promote themselves as socially responsible businesses will only succeed in attracting more protests from a new generation of radical "anti-brand" activists, a think-tank argues today.

The world's top consumer brands, such as Nike, Benetton and Gap, which spend tens of millions of dollars a year on marketing themselves to the young as progressive corporations, have made themselves the perfect targets for activists.

Michael Mosbacher, the author of Marketing the Revolution, published today by the Social Affairs Unit, says a breed of protesters has emerged which has adopted a radical anti-brand ideology and activism.

"Radical activists see companies that put forward a green or liberal agenda as simply deceiving people about the true nature of the business," Mr Mosbacher says.

Unlike older organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which believe that companies can operate in a responsible and sustainable way within the market society, the new generation of protesters believe all corporations are inherently destructive, Mr Mosbacher argues.

The movement, tied to anti-globalisation, has developed over the past five years and has its own style of activism, seen in street protests against capitalism in general and specific international organisations such as the World Bank. Outlets of chains such as Starbucks and McDonald's are targeted by these protests.

This "heterodox" movement has replaced the old radical left, Mr Mosbacher says, and it has its own intellectual champions such as Naomi Klein, author of the best-selling No Logo, and Noreena Hertz, author of The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy.

Mr Mosbacher, deputy director of the Social Affairs Unit, says the more a company parades its progressive credentials, the more important it is to activists that it be exposed and discredited. This includes businesses such as Body Shop, which bases its whole selling pitch on it being a socially responsible retailer. The activists seek to prove that there is no such thing as "ethical consumerism" and describe attempts to espouse environmentally friendly policies as "green-washing".

Picking on high-profile brands is a way of promoting a broader anti-capitalist agenda in an age when old-fashioned critiques of capitalism, such as Marxism, arouse little interest in young people, Mr Mosbacher says.

So, despite its politics being on the fringe, the anti-brand movement, by concentrating on famous corporate names and "dumbing down" its message, has managed to enter mainstream debate, top the best-seller lists, and even gain some sympathy in Middle England. The real agenda is to destroy the market system itself, although, Mr Mosbacher says, there is little clarity about what should replace it.

Mr Mosbacher says these campaigns are often successful in lowering the image of a company and businesses are very worried about the damage to their carefully nurtured brands.

His study concludes: "It is an irony that, at a time when the achievements of capitalism are becoming ever more apparent, capitalism is on the defensive, while the manifest failures of anti-capitalism seem to have done little to diminish the ardour many have for finding 'an alternative'."