The Yes Men Reveal the Predatory Reality of Global Corporations and Merit the Wings of Justice Award

THE YES MEN

Perhaps the most underutilized method of subverting global corporate immorality, slave labor and toxicity is to expose it in a manner that carries over several news cycles and starts to taint them. Groups like AdBusters and The Yes Men, among several others, who engage in this are called “culture jammers.” What they do is disrupt the “brand perception” of a product or company by creating humorously disruptive events that tarnish a “brand image.”

Such was the success of The Yes Men in subverting a cynical Dow Chemical Company campaign to appear to be for clean water, even as it has polluted the earth and refused to clean up its toxic mess.

An excerpt from The Yes Men April 19th news release on the Dow “waterwashing” worldwide PR stunt offers insight into The Yes Men style that infuriates corporations trying to use PR to hide up their nefarious practices:

Bucolic Prospect park in Brooklyn, NY played host to a bizarre spectacle on Sunday, as a dramatically under-attended Dow-sponsored "Run for Water" was infiltrated and turned upside down by hundreds of furious activists, including a hundred dressed as Dow spokespeople.

New Yorkers who came to the park expecting a light run followed by a free concert found themselves unwitting extras in a macabre and chaotic scene as runners keeled over dead, Dow-branded grim reapers chased participants, and a hundred fake Dow representatives harangued other protesters and and handed out literature that explained Dow's greenwashing program in frank detail.

The actions called attention to Dow's toxic legacy in places like India (the Bhopal Catastrophe), Vietnam (Agent Orange) and Midland Michigan (Dioxin Contamination), and to the absurdity of a company with serious water issues all over the world sponsoring the Live Earth Run For Water.

After race cancellations in London, Milan, Berlin, and Sweden, on-site Dow brand managers were in damage-control mode. But their job was made harder by the hundred fake "Dow" spokespeople who loudly but clumsily proclaimed Dow's position ("Our race! Our earth!" and "Run for water! Run for your life!"), spoke with many runners, screamed at the other protesters, passed out beautifully-produced literature, and all in all looked a whole lot better than the real Dow reps, who seemed eager to make themselves scarce.

There is little global corporations behaving-badly fear more than the tarnishing of their brand image. If there were more “culture jammers” and more non-corporate television coverage to get the message out, the corporate bad boys would likely be on the defensive and have to behave with some level of civility.

For showing the way to playfully, strategically and effectively expose the true image of predatory and pernicious global corporations that leave destruction and death in their wake, The Yes Men receive this week's BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award.

BUZZFLASH WINGS OF JUSTICE AWARD