ABSTRACT

In his work, Death of a Thousand Cuts, Jarol B. Mannheim (2001) identified the “corporate campaign” as an increasing phenomenon in American business. Using the strategies and tactics developed in political campaigns, corporate campaigns are designed to undercut the relationship between a corporation and its key stakeholders-investors, customers, community leaders, and employees-in an effort to influence corporate practice. Corporate campaigns often attack the “very corporateness” of their targets (Mannheim, 2001). Fueled by the decline of organized labor in the late twentieth century and the rise of anti-corporate political and ideological sentiments, corporate campaigns (perhaps more appropriately called “anticorporate campaigns”) now draw on the knowledge and expertise of campaign professionals schooled in methods of research, financial analysis, media strategy, and grassroots activation. Public relations strategies once considered within the primary purview of corporations are now used by opponents to undercut a corporation’s reputation and thereby move corporations toward change.