Introduction

This is “What Just Happened?,” the podcast that looks at the biggest brand crises of our time, what they meant for organisational strategy and behaviour, and their lasting impact on our approach to crisis communication.

I’m Kate Hartley. And I’m Tamara Littleton. And together, we’ll delve into what happened, why it mattered, and whether it could happen again.

Episode

Tamara Littleton: Welcome back to What Just Happened, and we’re going to be covering something that’s on the rise in the risk register. Kate, can you share more?

Kate Hartley: Yes. So today we’re going to look at protests and direct action against organisations, how it’s changed, and why it happens, and what organisations can learn from it.

TL: Firstly, shall we take a look at what we mean by direct action? Because we’re, we’re not talking about war here, are we? But what happens when people feel nothing else is working, so they take matters into their own hands, specifically against organisations rather than against governments?

KH: Yeah, exactly. So this is what happens when peaceful marches, petitions, writing to your MP — all the things that that we kind of traditionally think of as, as kind of protest — aren’t getting a result. So people feel that a system of resistance or peaceful protest isn’t working for them. So they take matters into their own hands.

TL: And we tend to think of this as, as new, but it’s, it’s always been there through history, hasn’t it?

KH: Yeah, it really has. I mean, in the early 1800s, the Luddites protested against the emergence of factories by smashing machines. Maybe we’ll see this with AI in the future.

Who knows? Oh, yeah.

TL: Data centres or something. Maybe. Yeah.

KH: Who knows? And then, of course, the suffragettes before the First World War had a campaign of smashing windows and using arson as a protest in order to get the vote. The civil rights movement in 1960s America used sit-ins and interstate Freedom Buses to campaign to end racial segregation, for example. And then, of course, something very close to us, Tamara: in 1988, four lesbians abseiled into the House of Lords to protest against Section 28.

TL: Brilliant.

KH: And some of those, some of those protests worked; some of them didn’t. I mean, factories obviously stayed, segregation ended, women got the vote, but Section 28 was passed by Parliament. Parliament — so, you know, some worked, some didn’t. I..

TL: I mean, I must say, we, we could do with more lesbians abseiling into the House of Lords, as we, we do seem to be going backwards. The world needs that. Yeah, but I, I digress. The point is that direct action has been used forever as a way to take power rather than wait for power to be handed over.

And to be successful, it usually has to have a really clear aim, like ending segregation or getting the vote, as you say. This is about the stuff that people really, really care about and often are prepared to break the law and get arrested over. And we talk a lot about our red lines in crisis exercises, and these are things that go against people’s red lines.

KH: And what’s interesting, I think, is, is it’s usually really controversial at the time. So the suffragettes were hugely controversial at the time, but then of course later in context, it’s often seen as the end justifies the means.

TL: But what we’re going to look at today is what happens when that action is taken against organisations or when they get caught up in this.

KH: Yeah, and for me, that’s probably most focused when you think about the Occupy movement, for example. So I remember really well the attempt to occupy the London Stock Exchange in October 2011 to protest against financial inequality. And Occupy met police resistance, so this actually ended up setting up camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral, which some of our listeners may remember from, from the UK. And they had speeches there from Julian Assange and also from Peter Tatchell, the LGBTQ+ rights activist.

That camp lasted till February 2012. But if you look at the photos of that camp — and I’d forgotten this — you see lots of people wearing the Guy Fawkes mask that became really well known for Anonymous, the hacktivist group. And it, of course, was loosely associated with the Occupy movement, and there were loads of Occupy protests across the world, focusing initially on the big banks.

TL: It was fascinating. I do remember it so well, and I suppose the big question for me is: did it work?

KH: Well, probably not, ultimately, if you look at, you know, what’s happening with financial inequality in the world now. But it did definitely raise the, raise the awareness of the conversation. But I think, ultimately, the goal was too big, and it had quite a lot of criticism at the time saying that. So it was calling for a radical overhaul of capitalism and democracy, and that’s just such a massive, massive goal.

That then, of course, fractured into specific goals per movement or per region. For example, things like overturning debt or transferring money out of big banks, or campaigning for affordable housing. But the, the big goals were just too big.

TL: And when I think of direct-action groups, I think of two of the biggest ones of our time: Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. And I know Extinction Rebellion came first, and I remember the campaign against Barclays, which really went for funding the fossil fuel industry. It’s interesting; it did that rather than go for the companies directly.

KH: Yeah. So its view, I think, was: if you want to stop fossil fuel companies, you go to the source of the money rather than directly targeting the rigs, for example. So it went for Barclays, which at the time was one of the biggest lenders to the fossil fuel industry.

TL: And that’s our first big lesson for companies: you can be involved in the supply chain and still be targeted. So what actually happened?

KH: Yeah, it’s worth looking into it. So in 2022, Extinction Rebellion launched a coordinated attack on Barclays with a day that was dedicated to occupying and defacing around 100 Barclays branches across the UK. And activists glued themselves to doors. In some places, they glued the doors shut.

They sprayed fake oil. They staged protests in lobbies. They did all sorts of things. Barclays in Canary Wharf had its window smashed, and then a small group of activists took out loans for about £4,000 from Barclays and donated them to a human rights group, and then refused to pay the loan.

TL: So, how did Barclays actually respond?

KH: Well, I mean, understandably, I think they came down pretty heavily on the property damage, and they used legal action to prosecute the activists, who were convicted of criminal damage. And there was then a PR campaign that reiterated their commitment to net zero by 2050, which, of course, is a nice long way off.

But that showed, essentially, that they were agreeing with Extinction Rebellion’s end goal, which I think was probably quite clever. And then, in 2024, it announced that it would stop financing new oil and gas projects.

But there were a lot of activists who pointed out that, actually, banks very rarely finance specific projects directly. They tend to finance the companies that run those projects. So it was probably a little bit of a loophole.

TL: So let’s talk about Just Stop Oil, which really came into prominence at the same time, and I think it changed things in that it specialised in the big stunt protest. It effectively had like a corporate brand as well, you know that very distinctive orange.

KH: Yeah, it really does, doesn’t it? And on Halloween 2022, Just Stop Oil targeted what they said were the four pillars of the fossil fuel economy. So that was, in their view, the Home Office, MI5, the Bank of England, and News Corp, and then they sprayed them with, with orange paint.

TL: And what happened after that?

KH: Well, there’s an absolutely brilliant statement on the Bank of England site, which says the cost of reversing the damage done by Just Stop Oil was £20,644, which is very specific. The response from government was, was pretty tough, actually. So it introduced new legislation in 2022 and 2023 to criminalise causing a public nuisance and also broadened the power of the police to manage protests, so things like interfering with a major infrastructure organisation is now a criminal offence.

But then Just Stop Oil kind of incorporated that into their protest, so they then made sure that getting arrested was part of that publicity. And of course, so many protesters have done that before them, as we’ve seen in the civil rights and the, the suffragettes and so on. But actually, I think that that regulation has made it slightly difficult for groups like that to, to kind of get a hold in the way that they, they did before.

TL: And I understand that Just Stop Oil, in theory, has hung up its orange vests now because they say that they’ve won their battle to stop new oil and gas licences, as it’s now government policy. But, of course, that doesn’t stop people; it just fractures and goes underground.

KH: And there are loads of these groups. So some of them I really didn’t know. So there’s one called Tyre Extinguishers.

That’s a group that deflates tyres on SUVs, and they drilled holes in tyres at a Land Rover dealership in Cornwall. And there’s another one called Shut the System that smashed windows and superglued locks and cut internet cables as well.

TL: We seem to be talking a lot about superglue. I wonder if the superglue companies do okay from these protests.

KH: Good time to invest. I don’t know. But, more seriously, we, we can’t talk about direct action without mentioning, mentioning Palestine Action. And we should obviously say that this has now been proscribed as a terrorist group in the UK.

We should also say that proscription is described by the government as a neutral process. In other words, it’s not done on the basis of ideology, but on the basis of it posing a threat to the UK. I think it is worth looking at what happened before that group was proscribed. So the big event, if you like, was that four Palestine Action activists were jailed after they broke into the Bristol factory of Elbit Systems — and that’s an Israel-based defence firm — and they caused £1.2 million worth of damage.

Their aim was to destroy equipment that they believed would be sent to Israel. Now, those jail sentences were very controversial. Inevitably, that led to very polarised opinion about the right to free speech and the right to protest. First, there’s the right not to have your property destroyed in the course of business.

But I think why it’s worth mentioning this is what changed this from other forms of protest. I think it’s that one of the activists actually fractured the spine of a police sergeant with a sledgehammer while she was trying to arrest the activist. And, ultimately, I think that’s what moved this from a protest, in the way that we see with Just Stop Oil, for example, to something that became intimidating and violent. All of that was streamed live on, on social media, and the view of the court was that it was glorifying criminality and vigilantism.

TL: And these issues are all really complex. And apart from the Elbit protest, which clearly was violence against the police sergeant, what’s hard is just understanding what, what is violence and what is protest. And let’s assume that none of us approve of violence against people as a starting point.

KH: I think you do have to start there, really. And some groups say that smashing windows is less violent than what’s happening to the planet, for, for example. So that’s what’s known — and I went into a bit of a research rabbit hole, you’ll be surprised to know, Tamara, about this — as a moral mandate.

And, actually, with your psychology background, you probably know this better than I do. So that means that the end justifies the means. So I would argue, for example, from my personal point of view, that, on the Section 28 protests, or the suffragettes, or the civil rights movement, the end did justify the, the means.

But, of course, you know, lots of the public draw different, different lines. But there’s also a really fascinating principle here, which is called the moral off-ramp. So we tend to think that our moral compasses are fixed, but, of course, they’re not. So we might think violence is wrong, and that’s a core principle that we all live by.

But, of course, we all have this off-ramp when we believe something is a matter of life or death, or of survival. We stop caring about the rules and our principles, and we do something violent, and we can justify it. And I think there’s probably an element of that going on here too.

TL: And I think there’s something else going on here too, which is it’s to do with bias to an extent, polarisation. We side with the groups we support, and we’re more likely to forgive them.

KH: I think that’s absolutely true and really important. So if you support the goals of Just Stop Oil or Palestine Action, then you’re more likely to ignore or even accept the violence committed by those groups because you see them as necessary steps to achieve an end goal, and that’s the principle of what’s called in-group leniency, which is basically when we, we judge members of our own group or our perceived group less harshly than members of a perceived outside group. So that means we’re more tolerant to things like property damage if it’s caused by a group whose ideology we support or who we identify with.

TL: That’s why I didn’t mind the activists who chained themselves to the news desk with Nicholas Witchell as well. I was rooting for them.

KH: Absolutely.

TL: But yeah, so if you’re a climate activist, you might think it’s okay for Just Stop Oil to break into a government building, but you wouldn’t support a far-right group doing the same thing. And it’s, it’s like watching football. If our team fouls a player, we’ll say that was an accident, or they were just going for the ball.

But if the other team does it, we definitely want a red card. So, what can organisations learn from all of this?

KH: So, I think the first thing is what you talked about in the introduction, which is that the risk landscape is a bit different now. We have to take polarisation and direct action into account, particularly if your organisation is either directly or indirectly funding or supporting industries or causes that, for whatever reason, could be controversial. And, of course, controversy looks different depending on who you are.

TL: And, of course, we have to build in how we look after people. It must be incredibly hard to go to work in a building where protesters are supergluing themselves to doors. Or, and some of them might actually share the beliefs of the protest groups, for example, or, or their friends might, and that could really alienate them and perhaps turn them against their employer. And this is something that, you know, we’re aware of: that that leads to the increased threat of insider risk too, where people within the organisation are motivated to take direct action against their employer, literally biting the hand that feeds them, either for ideological reasons or because they’re disgruntled, or both.

KH: And you might not even work directly for that company. Say it’s an oil company for the purposes of this discussion, but you might work for the supplier to the supplier to the oil company, or your company might have a pension fund that funds other organisations that a protest group is campaigning against. So I think we need to look further down the supply chain, and when you’re going through a crisis audit, we really need to understand those broader risks and what we’re prepared to put up with and what we’re not, what our red lines are.

TL: There’s so much to dig into, isn’t there? Particularly around the environment that lets this stuff thrive and what motivates people to take action. And we’ll look at this with our guest after this short break. 

Break

TL: We’re delighted to welcome Rod Cartwright back to the podcast.

Rod is the founder of Rod Cartwright Consulting, and he brings 30 years of global PR expertise gained at agencies, including Ketchum and Text 100. He’s counselled corporations, governments, and charities worldwide on reputation and crisis communications, including on the front line during the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370, which we covered in a previous episode. Welcome back, Rod.

Rod Cartwright: Always delighted to be here. Such a highlight of the year.

TL: And talking about the highlight of a year, you actually do a massive report on reputation, risk and resilience each year, and you write up and analyse the findings from all of the big reports in crisis trends. And I know that this year, Rod, you’ve talked in the report about the age of angst and rage. So, what do you think triggers people to move directly against an organisation?

RC: I wish I could say that those motivations, those triggers, were born of a sort of purely heartfelt, principled belief that what an organisation is doing is, if you like, against the public good, and that that belief is informed by a clash of the organisation’s conduct with the protesters’ equally sincere sort of personal and collective values. And there’s no question at all that, in many cases, that is what is going on. 

But I think we’d also be kidding ourselves to pretend that those arguably perfectly valid reasons for protesting are, at times and maybe increasingly, distorted by the rise of mis-, dis- and malinformation, which is a major feature of this year’s report, and that that, in turn, is often purposefully and consciously stoked by those who would wish the protests to happen. But I think what we’re also seeing is, is misinformation fuelled by, and in turn compounding, the polarisation that I think has become a sort of hallmark of today’s world.

KH: Yeah, that’s, that’s — we’re seeing so much of this in exercises that we run in organisations, preparing for that mis-, dis- and malinformation. It might just be, really quickly, Rod, running through what the difference is between those, for, for people who don’t know. It’s a question we get asked a lot. So, if you wouldn’t mind just running through what the difference is.

RC: So misinformation is information that is incorrect but need not necessarily be communicated with malintent. Disinformation is, is false or flawed information that is consciously communicated with the intention of doing harm. And malinformation, if you like, is the extreme version of disinformation: it sets out to cause damage. So I think it’s like a sliding scale, as opposed to three hermetically sealed ideas, with the scale increasing with the degree of intent and the degree, the degree of intended harm.

KH: That’s brilliant, thank you, because I know quite often people sort of get those things confused, and the, the intent, I think, is really important to understand here, isn’t it? Thank you, Rod. That’s brilliant.

And so we talked earlier about people taking direct action when they feel they can’t go through normal channels. And I, I don’t really know what normal channels are anymore. But, you know, in the old days, it would have been writing to your MP or perhaps, you know, you know, writing a sternly worded letter to the newspaper. But, you know, those kinds of normal protest channels.

And I know that one of the reports you look at is the Edelman Trust Barometer, and that said that people were retreating from the system. A lot of the other reports, I think, showed similar things: people losing trust in institutions’ ability to do what they promise. Do you think organisations are listening to what’s going on, and do you think they’re doing enough to counter that?

RC: Oh, how do we cover this in less than an hour? The answer to that question is: are they listening? I think organisations, many of them, are listening, but are they necessarily hearing and heeding?

So one of the things I’m sure we’ll come on to is one of the things I found in my report this year about the awareness-preparedness gap, which is the gap between organisations being aware of a risk, or a basket of risks, and then actively engaging and investing in preparedness to deal with those. And we see a really stark difference between the levels of awareness and the willingness to engage in that investment. 

And I think part of that awareness-preparedness gap is, is born, to some extent, of what I sometimes call denialism: knowing that something is out there but not being willing or able to actually face up to the extent to which that is a reality for the organisation. And I think we’ve talked in the past about the difference between character-led scandals and capability-led crises.

And I think many organisations I work with have something of a blind spot for crises or vulnerabilities that stem from their culture, their values, their ethics and their behaviour. So I think organisations listen very often to things that feel like they threaten the organisation operationally. There is more of a blind spot — or the oral equivalent of a blind spot — for those where they have to face up to their cultural and behavioural vulnerabilities.

KH: This is becoming such a theme on this podcast, isn’t it? I think of the difference between what organisations say they value and believe in, and then how they, they behave. It’s fascinating.

TL: And I’m going to just jump it back into polarisation. You mentioned that before. Everything is just so much more fractured right now, and what impact is this having on crisis preparation for organisations? Can we particularly talk about, perhaps, the, the impact on employees and their expectations from organisations?

RC: Yeah, I mean, I think the numbers on, on polarisation are quite remarkable. I mean, just a couple. You know, the Edelman Trust Barometer found that 70% of people globally are hesitant or unwilling to engage with those who differ from them. The AXA Future Risks Report — that was, like, their lead structural finding — found that only 10% of the general population believes that their country shares common values.

You know, the WEF, in its Global Risks Report, talks about streets versus elites. So, if people question the extent of polarisation, the numbers are absolutely stark and startling. 

And I think that, when it comes to employees, I think we, we forget that, basically, employees are human beings as well. So all the dynamics that we’ve touched on about, you know, societal polarisation, you know, being susceptible to mis-, dis- and malinformation, apply every bit as much to employees as employees as they do to employees as citizens and general human beings.

But I think that’s another dynamic that genuinely, as a sort of citizen, really worries me. This year, I talked about what I called an embedded psychological pandemic, where you’re seeing globally worsening mental health and plummeting employee engagement. You know, International SOS says there are a billion people globally living with a diagnosed mental health condition, and Gallup saw employee engagement falling for the second consecutive year to 20%. So I think if you take polarisation, mis-, dis- and malinformation, rising mental health and plummeting employee engagement, you have a sort of cocktail with all the ingredients for employees to really, really consider taking any discontent with their employer to a new level and to express it in much more activist ways.

TL: And, and of course, the, the three of us work a lot on insider risk, and, and we sort of run insider, insider-risk simulations for, for, for clients. So are you saying — or, well, do, do you think — that we’ll see increased incidents of insider risk as a result of this polarisation and this kind of — these multiple issues coming at the same time?

RC: I mean, I think almost inevitably, as night follows day, because, again, if you look at all the data that I’ve just mentioned, I mean, Gallup says that the cost of employee disengagement to the global economy is around $10 trillion annually. So, if you’ve also got organisations that are somewhat blind — I talked in the report about the human-risk blind spot, a tendency to be blind to the risks that either involve or impact human beings — if you add in that blind spot, then I think, almost inevitably, you’re going to see these dynamics being reflected in organisations’ vulnerability to risks from the inside.

KH: I want to dig in a little bit more on the employee area, actually, because you talk in the report about advocacy versus strategic silence, I think, is the, the phrase that, that people are using, that, that you talked about in the report, and it came up in, in more than one of those reports, I think. What’s your view on whether organisations should speak out on issues, particularly those that their employees or their customers care about? But potentially, I suppose, that could increase engagement from employees if they think their values are aligned with the organisation.

Or do you think that organisations should take this strategic silence, or institutional neutrality, or whatever you want to call it? And are there areas — this is a multiple question, sorry — where you advise organisations to stay well away from, from that?

RC: Yeah, I mean, I think, just before I answer the question directly, there is a really interesting contextual shift. Even two or three years ago, I was seeing in, in the data and the analysis a real expectation of businesses to step up, step in and speak out where governments were failing to act on big societal and economic issues. And we still see, you know, business is still the only truly trusted institution. ‘My employer’, in inverted commas, is again the most trusted community.

But, at the same time, we are seeing organisations somewhat retreating from, from speaking out, and I think we have to be very careful. People talk about the death of DEI. I’m constantly seeing analysis that says DEI isn’t dying; it’s simply shape-shifting. It’s being, it’s morphing into the same thing, but by any other name, to weirdly paraphrase Shakespeare at this point in the podcast.

But I think that the answer to the question of whether an organisation should stand up and speak out on an issue is the joke that we often make as crisis people: the answer is, it depends. It depends on the issue. It depends on the organisation. It depends, crucially, on the organisation’s context.

But I think even in, in, in the, the days when people were expecting organisations to speak out, there was also an acceptance that organisations should speak out where it makes business, strategic and brand sense to do so. I mean, there was a wonderful quote in one of Ipsos’s Reputation Council reports a couple of years ago about bandwagon-jumping. And, you know, we’ve discussed this very often in the context of DEI: organisations jumping on an issue because they think that there’s, there’s a brand dividend to be had. But I think standing up and speaking out on an issue in which, you know, your, your business has no involvement is questionable.

You know, we see this with conflict, for example. You know, I’m almost loath to bring up the Israel–Gaza conflict, but organisations taking a really, really robust stance on that issue when they have absolutely no footprint, no employees geographically in that area, is probably questionable. So I think the answer is: you have to be highly judicious. You have to be aware that, in a polarised world, any position is going to be ripped apart by one side or the other, but therefore it has to be rooted in your business reality, your strategic reality and your brand reality.

KH: I totally agree with that. We did a great podcast, actually — the last episode, if anyone hasn’t listened to it — with Ashley Allen, who was talking about DEI in, in relation to Pride campaigns. And, yeah, there’s some really interesting stuff in there that I would urge people to listen to about having earned the right to talk about some of the things you, you do.

I think you’re absolutely right there, Rod. Thank you.

TL: And I’m going to get a bit practical, Rod, and, and you don’t have to say whether you’ve advised clients in this particular area, but let’s just say you find yourself the subject of a boycott or a direct-action campaign — enough is enough; you’re cancelled. But let’s just say a client is the subject of a boycott or a direct action campaign, and wakes up with paint all over their office. What would they do?

What should they do? Yeah.

RC: I mean, again, I’m obviously going to say those two little words: it depends. But what I would also say is, it’s a bit like, you know, that, that hackneyed old joke about asking directions in Devon, and people say, ‘I wouldn’t have started from here, you know.’ The point where you wake up and discover the front of your building is being daubed with orange paint, or people are glued to your windows, is the point where your entire approach to risk assessment and risk preparedness has gone horribly wrong. And I’m not saying, you know, no organisation has the ability to utterly determine its future, but, for me, that instance is a sign of an organisation that hasn’t properly qualified and quantified its risk environment.

And, you know, in the report I talk about assuming agency. That, for me, is a sign that an organisation hasn’t assumed agency for the areas in which it’s potentially vulnerable. I think, to be fair, and without contradicting what I’ve just said, quite often you see organisations being hit in that way almost as a proxy for public anger.

You know, we’re increasingly seeing publics of all kinds finding themselves, you know, powerless, feeling unable to influence a system that won’t listen to them, isn’t interested in what they have to say, and therefore they find their own poster child. They find their own lightning rod. So part of it is to say: you shouldn’t have got there in the first place. Let’s imagine, fine, that is just a fact of life.

There is paint on the windows. There are people glued to the, the revolving door. The answer has to be about, on the one hand, being empathetic to why that has got there while, at the same time, being pretty robust on illegality. I mean, an organisation has a right to protect itself and its people structurally from, from a security perspective.

So there should be a tried-and-tested security response, and this should all have been stress-tested in the ways that you do at Polpeo. You should have role-played this. So the answer is: it’s never easy. The final thing to say is that people obsess over reputational impact, and I think that’s fine.

But reputation is what people understand, think and feel about you. What really matters is your relationships: how they behave and act. So the way out of a direct protest has to be as much about drawing on the pull of positive equity that you have, reputation- and relationship-wise, but then focusing on relationships, stakeholder by stakeholder, to make sure that you’re rebuilding as fast as you possibly can.

TL: A last question, just because we haven’t talked about AI yet. But we actually said at the beginning of the podcast — Kate and I were talking about the, the Luddites — Rod, do you think that AI is going to be the next red line for people?

RC: Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting. Over the last few years, I’ve been sort of sitting, doing the analysis and, and waiting for AI to rear its head, and it kind of hasn’t. This year has changed. You know, there was a massive leap in the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report, where the adverse outcomes of AI over two years jumped from number 30 to number five, and AXA found that only 11% of risk experts believe that public authorities are prepared for AI risks.

For me, I think the data are interesting, but I think it’s actually much more sort of human and experiential. At the moment, I think most people’s interaction with AI as citizens is, you know, do I use ChatGPT to find a good restaurant or, or plan a holiday? I think that if we start seeing stories like, you know, OpenAI finding one of its LLMs jumping out of a sandbox and, and, you know, invading another organisation, when we start to see a sense that AI is genuinely stealing people’s jobs, it has to become real for that latent risk to become active. So, I would give it a sort of, you know, 50% chance of rapidly taking off as a focus of public discontent and public protest.

That’s not a statistical number. My gut is the vulnerability and the risk is there. Whether it flares up remains to be seen.

Outro

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