Triumph: Burma Campaign UK's 2001 'Support Breasts – Not Dictators'
poster proved successful in persuading the bra maker to divest.
Photograph: Burma Campaign UK/guardiannews.com
Having fun with your activism is a crucial strategy towards having impact. No matter how serious the issue or the struggle, people across the centuries have punctured the inflated sense of power and authority of their opponents with humour, mischief and subversion. That has been true whether the target of resistance was unjust laws, illegitimate governments or misbehaving companies. It not only helps you enjoy your work, it attracts attention, recruits support and cuts through your opponents' defences.
A few years ago, I was involved in a campaign to stop companies doing business with the military dictatorship in Burma – in support of Burma's democrats who had called for foreign companies to disinvest. We used to request very politely (and in private) that an offending company withdraw their business. If they refused, we would launch a campaign.
One company, Triumph International, producing men and women's underwear, told us they were staying in Burma despite our request that they leave. If the medium is the message, then what they were saying was definitely pants. As a result, we had no choice but to go for their smalls. A photograph of a female model wearing a barbed wire bra was produced (no model was harmed during the making of the image). We needed a tagline saying what a bra maker should be doing, and what it shouldn't. The result was: "Support Breasts – Not Dictators!"
The "Support Breasts" image was picked up widely across the press, with accompanying stories of the lingerie company's business ties with the Burmese regime. Not long after, the company pulled out of Burma.
We also produced an image of a male model's bum wearing a pair of eye-watering barbed wire briefs. For that one we came up with: "Support Genitals – Not Generals!" Unfortunately, it never got used.
One of our campaigns was against an international tobacco company that was in business with the Burmese junta. For that, we produced a mock cigarette ad, with a photo of two Burmese soldiers emerging from the jungle, armed and dangerous. Their uniforms and helmets were decked out in the logos of the cigarette brands owned by the tobacco company. In sponsorship terms, these two boys were the military equivalent of Nadal and Djokovic. With a range of similar tactics over an 11-month campaign, the tobacco company pulled out of Burma.
We were a small campaign of only four staff and the companies we targeted were often big multinationals. But because of the publicity we were able to generate, people often thought we were a much bigger operation. We'd even get phone calls from people asking to be put through to our press department, or to speak to someone in marketing. Sometimes, we transferred the calls to each other so as not to disappoint. As they say, it's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog – and I like to think we had a bit of fox in us, too.
In any campaign, it's also crucial to talk about your successes – both to the potential recruits to your campaign, as well as your potential targets. The worst recruitment pitch I've heard from activists attempting to win new supporters is that they've been campaigning on an issue for years and it's getting worse all the time … then why would anyone want to join you?
By making our successes known to companies working in Burma, we were able to persuade many of them to pull out without even launching a campaign. That's when you know your strategy is working.
• John Jackson will be speaking as part of the Yes Lab's Creative Activism Thursday series on 27 October, in New York. For further details of the event and series, visit Yes Lab Projects
Comments in chronological order (Total 31 comments)
21 October 2011 6:34PM
Where can I buy a T shirt with the Bank of America logo?
Alternatively, Goldman Sachs is doing God's work.
21 October 2011 6:35PM
Barb wire tits I'll be wanking for a week!
21 October 2011 6:40PM
DocMolotov
21 October 2011 6:35PM
Not Titty F-ing? That wouldn't be funny (for you).
21 October 2011 6:41PM
I only have to look at any member of the front bench,it's like a five year Monty Python sketch.
Everything they say and do is completely stupid.
21 October 2011 6:42PM
This is an inspirational tale of using wit and humour to get a point across. Far less damaging to stress levels caused by anger at injustice in the world. Thank you.
21 October 2011 6:44PM
There has always been satire and piss-taking, without it we'd all go nuts, it's a form of release reacting to the constant idiocy of the world around us.
21 October 2011 6:44PM
Protest doesn't have to be painfully earnest. In fact, wit can be a campaigner's most effective weapon
Very true. Unfortunately, the folk who have taken up protesting as an alternative to tennis are not bright enough to exercise wit. They are lost in the mind-numbing darkness of their own fundaments.
21 October 2011 6:45PM
I find
works well as a slogan for any occasion
21 October 2011 6:47PM
Liam Fox's resignation speech was comedy gold.
21 October 2011 6:48PM
You could google peterloo CIF, fer a laugh...
21 October 2011 6:49PM
StevieND
21 October 2011 6:44PM
Protest doesn't have to be painfully earnest. In fact, wit can be a campaigner's most effective weapon
Evidence please.
21 October 2011 6:50PM
I think this piece might have included some other people's examples of using humour successfully. Without them, it simply reads like self-promotion.
21 October 2011 6:50PM
You're right... but it wasn't only laughter that stopped the Blackshirts in 1936.
21 October 2011 6:50PM
Being able to rip the pi55 is essential to maintaining one's sanity when one finds themselves being ruled over by the current Government...
21 October 2011 6:50PM
You don't have to have a degree and Millions to be a despicable lowlife...but it helps you become an MP.
21 October 2011 6:51PM
zapthecrap
21 October 2011 6:47PM
Liam Fox's resignation speech was comedy gold.
..................................................................................................
Unintentional hilarity and satire is often the best.
21 October 2011 6:55PM
I wondered why Aung San Suu Kyi never wore a bra.
21 October 2011 6:56PM
The funniest thing in politics - George W. Bush - ever...
The funniest in recent times - Liam Fox - a bit like Wile E Coyote; though, unlike most Fox's, certainly not wily...
21 October 2011 6:57PM
As Messrs Bell, Rowson et all testify.
21 October 2011 6:57PM
The funniest in recent times - Liam Fox - a bit like Wile E Coyote; though, unlike most Fox's, certainly not wily...
...enough :-))
21 October 2011 6:58PM
Never heard of the Burma ad campaign, but I have heard of Fathers For Justice.
QED
21 October 2011 6:58PM
I've been trying to think up ways to subvert the astroturf, 'I Heart Manchester' campaign, but to no avail.
21 October 2011 7:02PM
Who says us lefties have no sense of humour? Bill Hicks and Alexei Sayle always managed to be sidesplitting and subversively leftist.
Who have the Tories got - Jim Davison and..............um.................?
(I bet Michael McIntyre's a closet Tory. He sounds like one.)
21 October 2011 7:03PM
I miss the eighties when this government would have been constantly ridiculed by most top comedians and the general level of media scrutiny was far superior to its modern day pathetic equivalent.
21 October 2011 7:06PM
They also have Tom Greeves, who provided us with this hilarious ditty:
21 October 2011 7:20PM
We should bring back That Was The Week That Was and Spitting Image which was subversion at it's very best and has yet to be bettered.
21 October 2011 7:21PM
Good ideas-
Problem is it only works with western based companies that make a small amount of money in those dictatorships.
Won't work with getting Exxon or Gulf out of Saudi Arabia- and certainly won't have Gazprom move out of Russia.
21 October 2011 7:45PM
Next big demo should involve giant clown shoes, red noses and custard pies !
That would be so cool.....
Style of thing
21 October 2011 7:54PM
Am I missing something here? The campaign poster isn't funny. A barbed wire bra on a blurry, skinny white woman? It's the sort of advert you'd get from Ann Summers announcing it was sponsoring Amnesty International.
21 October 2011 8:01PM
I think the best humour in protest also transcends political divisions, which is important if you want to get broad-based support instead of singing to the choir.
Imageark: We've already got enough clowns in power and they're even less funny than the circus variety, we don't need more of them (style of thing).
21 October 2011 8:07PM
pimentomori: Surely whats important 's that it made people, including those in the media, stop and look and got attention for the issue, not whether or not it's a decent joke? I don't think it's a side-splitter either, but who cares - it seems to have had some success and that's what matters.