How I Learned to Love Shrimp

Toby Schiønning on "fair cop" and a new model for corporate campaigning

• James Özden

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:26:13

My guest today is Thorbjørn Schiønning, also known as Toby, who is the Director of Communications and Campaigns, and co-founder of Anima International. He’s been involved in animal rights for 15+ years, specialising in corporate outreach, campaigning and media work. 

In this epsiode, we speak about the recent huge success for chickens in Norway – where the Norwegian chicken industry agreed to phase out fast-growing broiler breeds, affecting over 70 million animals, by the end of 2027 – the first time a country has taken such major action to help chickens raised for meat. More importantly, we spend a bunch of time discussing Anima International’s strategy when it comes to corporate campaigning, and why they’ve come up with a new term, “fair cop” which they feel is a better approach to the well-known concepts of good cop and bad cop.

Toby has lots of useful advice for anyone interested in campaigning and advocacy: why threatening big campaigns can be counterproductive, why more campaign groups should build a war chest of campaigning funds, why most campaigners should wait longer before escalating and much more. 

I learned a lot about corporate campaigning strategy from this one and this is coming at a really critical time in the movement, both for cage-free and our work on broilers, so hope you all enjoy!

Chapters:

  • (00:00:00) - Intro
  • (00:03:04) - Should we block new farms?
  • (00:08:19) - Norway’s breakthrough for chickens
  • (00:16:06) - Why animal groups should focus on fewer issues
  • (00:23:12) - Focusing on commitments vs implementation?
  • (00:28:06) - What fair cop means
  • (00:36:13) - How to campaign when you're in it for the long haul
  • (00:47:25) - The value of patience & dialogue
  • (01:07:43) - Anima's £1 million war chest for campaigning
  • (01:13:39) - Poker, backgammon and developing good judgement
  • (01:21:43) - Good news, recommendations, and where to find Anima


Resources:


With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing!

If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

Why diplomacy matters in advocacy

Toby

I imagine a lot of organizations have not thought enough about the importance of diplomacy and the long-term game and and being very focused on what needs to happen now. So I think some groups may think, oh, we we're just here to to put pressure at all at all costs.

James

Yes.

Toby

And not thinking about, okay, what if we have to meet them in six months' time or in one year's time or in three or four years' time? I mean, we we have a few examples with companies that don't want to meet with us just because we started a campaign that we even thought was fair, but the company didn't. If we had had like more of a pattern of switching targets all the time, we might find ourselves in a situation where there's so many companies we couldn't talk to. We see it unfortunately quite a bit uh in Poland where we work because for quite many years we have not paid enough attention to these dynamics. So the tone has been a bit more harsh, a bit more rough. Uh and a lot of companies are like, ah, we don't really want to deal with you. Or they're being like, we don't really trust you. And you know, trust is a little bit like muscle, it's uh very slow to gain and very, very fast to lose.

James

My guest today is Thorbjørn Schiønning, also known as Toby, who is the director of communications and campaigns, as well as being the co-founder of Anima International. He's been involved in animal rights for over 15 years, specializing in corporate outreach, campaigning, and media work. And some of his hobbies include games like chess, poke, and backgammon, including, I believe, playing at a backgammon world championship. And we discuss why these set of hobbies might be relevant for campaigners at the end of today's conversation. We speak about the recent huge success for chickens in Norway, where the Norwegian chicken industry has agreed to phase out fast-growing broiler breeds, which will affect over 70 million animals per year by the end of 2027. And this is the first time a country anywhere in the world has taken such major action to help chickens raise meat. And I think even more importantly, we spend a bunch of time discussing Anima International Strategy when it comes to corporate campaigning and why they've come up with a new term, which they call fair cop, and why they feel this is a better approach to the well-known concepts of good cop and bad cop. And Toby has lots of interesting tidbits, advice, and tactics for anyone who's interested in campaigning and advocacy, such as why threatening big campaigns can actually be counterproductive to long-term success, why more campaign groups should be building a war chest of campaigning funds, why most campaigners should wait longer and spend more time negotiating for escalating, and much, much more. Today I just learned a lot about corporate campaigning strategy, and this is coming at a really critical time for the movement, both in our K3 efforts as well as our broiler welfare efforts. So I hope you all enjoy this and find it useful. Toby, thanks so much for joining. Nice to have you on.

Toby

Thank you, James. I'm happy to be here.

James

The first question we like to ask everyone is what's something you changed your mind on recently and why?

Toby

Yes, I had to think a little, but I came up with Stop the Farms concept, which probably many are familiar with, the idea of stopping new factory farms from being built. I think when I heard of it the first time, I was very much in favor of it, but now I also see a lot of drawbacks to it. Uh one instance is if you talk about improving broiler chicken welfare. Uh one of the asks that we have is that we want broilers to have be of slower growing strains and we want them to have more space. And if we want that, then actually more farms are needed in order to house the birds. Otherwise, we're working against ourselves on the one hand saying we want higher welfare, and on the other hand, saying that there shouldn't be uh houses for the animals to be housed. So I think that's a point where I've changed my mind, thinking that it's not helping so much. And also there's an element of playing tech that we're just being very reactive in the way that we work and not really having our own things that we want to change, but we just want to be a stick in the wheel, so to speak.

James

Yeah, kind of kind of whack-a-mole as something comes up, you try stop it and something else, and then like do you do this forever? And it's like a game of cat or mouse, yeah, it's not clear.

Toby

Yeah, and it seems it seems not reasonable that we would be able to do that everywhere in the world, regardless. So it seems like we can spend a lot of resources just seeing where we can do like some things here and there, but not really having a broader window of of how we actually can can make change happen.

James

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely think this is this is an interesting campaign because also Anima has been running this in Poland for some years now, right? So, like, have you guys seen this almost tension between trying to stop farms and giving animals more space? Like, have you seen this in your own work? And like kind of what are some examples of this playing out?

Toby

Yeah, so at least like in in Poland, I think we have a harder time having you know good working relations with producers. Uh so at least there's something going on here that on the one hand, we're just blocking some stuff, and on the other hand, we want to talk to the producers about how to improve animal welfare. So that's part of the reason why we have decided to actually stop uh this program in Poland now. There's also more deeper reasons into it, but this is definitely one of them uh that we're just simply just working against ourselves, which is always a bad thing when you have limited resources.

James

Yeah, yeah. Uh and maybe yeah, we can linger on this for a second. So I think this is like a very topical thing, and obviously, maybe because I live in the UK and this is you know, that there's a good amount of activity happening in the UK here. I think some people just say, oh, but if blocking factory farms isn't a good thing, what what even is a good thing? Or like, you know, even if we give the animals more space, it's still factory farming, therefore it's bad. So we should stop it. How would you respond to those kind of points or pushback?

Toby

I mean, I would at least have to see a strategy where you're not only able to block new farms from being built, but you're able to block all farms, not even in your own country, but also from import, because it seems to me that we just push the problem around and saying, okay, it's not in my backyard, but now it's another in another backyard or in another country. I know in the UK it's a very big problem that there's simply not enough barns for for being able to house broilers. So if we want to have slower-growing broilers in the UK, it's so much more difficult now that there are so few broiler barns. Uh so to me, it's a it's a really big problem that this is happening. And it sounds, in a sense, ridiculous because I shouldn't be saying this as an animal advocate. I should be against these farms being built. But if if I want the animals to lead better lives in these places, then I think we need more square meters. Like even if you wanted animals to be, say, free range or something, then you would also need more fields. You wouldn't want to stop them. So it's kind of taking that idea to the full extent.

James

Yeah. I I'm kind of curious. If you took us out even further, it's like we should actually be helping the industry build more barns. If anything, we should be the ones pushing for released uh easier planning commission. Like, do you think that's something you guys would do, or do you think the logic doesn't extend that far?

Toby

I don't know if we would do it actively. Uh it's but it's definitely something we should consider. It's like we should always be like, how can we make the most change for animals? And if that means helping the bureaucracy of actually getting new farm permissions, then maybe that's what we should do. Or if we should talk to banks and say, well, it's actually good if you give out loans to people who want to expand their farms to build you know higher welfare productions, then maybe that's what we should do. So we're not just limited to being the ones always criticizing, but sometimes we're also being constructive in the way that we go around and do business. But we have to be very mindful that we just don't become tools for the industry just to do stuff because we got some ideas. And it might also be that in some cases stop the farms does make sense. But right now I just see so many more drawbacks to this idea than than benefits.

Norway’s breakthrough for chickens

James

Yeah, definitely. And I think this approach of almost doing things that maybe feel kind of counterintuitive, but also not totally going along with what industry says. I think that's like a uh maybe a attention or like something we'll touch on with the Fair Cup approach we'll discuss. But I I guess the the first thing I wanted to um talk about mainly was the recent major win for broiler chickens in Norway. So maybe you can say a bit more about what was the recent announcement and why was it so monumental for chickens in Norway.

Toby

Yeah, I I think this is a very groundbreaking victory that we are seeing in Norway. And I think a lot of people can take credit, not not only ourselves, but basically what is happening is that the industry will transition fully away from fast-growing, brighter breeds in Norway. So so basically all of Norway would would be with slower growing breeds, and I think that's a world first. And it's been a long time getting there. I mean, we we started the work in Norway probably in 2017 or so. But but even before then, some things have happened with like a major retailer and a major producer having switched already to slower growing. So that kind of paved the way. But but but but the recent thing is just kind of now now we have a line in the sand and and it's gonna happen within the next two years, then then we will see it. And it's it's it's a little bit easier in Norway because Norway is not you know importing and exporting much. So so they have a better environment to do these kind of things than other countries would have.

James

I guess maybe not everyone is in the in the weeds of animal welfare science. Uh in your view, how much better is the life of a slow-growing chicken, broiler chicken versus a traditional fast-growing one that they use in most places?

Toby

The way I would answer is if you want to improve lives for broilers, you cannot get around this topic. Like the most important thing you have to do is not using these breed that has been genetically selected to be so fast growing that it just you know it it breaks the animals. Like they have you know, leg health problems, they have you know all kinds of you know diseases that just come from you know bad bone fractures, like like all these kinds of things that is just so bad for animals. So if we want to go in another direction, it has to be slower growing, otherwise you will just see these problems. Then the question is to what extent does it help with the slower growing breeds that are currently in place? It really depends which one you choose. And unfortunately, what we have seen in recent years is that the breeding companies they're like trying to find the lower limits for when you can actually have a slower growing breed and just finding the kind of optimal place where you get the most you know productivity and still at a slower growth. So so you could take the worst of the slower growing breeds and you would say say that okay, the differences aren't huge, huge, huge, but they're still very significant.

James

Yeah.

Toby

But but if we ever are going to go in this direction, we have to start somewhere and then we can kind of improve going from there. But I mean, there have been you know studies been made and it shows that you know it will be like in like a hundred hours of pain that that is like less pain for for slow growing breach compared to fast growing, so so it is very significant.

James

Yeah, and this is a hundred hours over their only six week lifespan, right? So it's actually a pretty large number of pretty short time that they live.

Toby

Yeah, so so it is very significant. But I mean you you can always question those things things and say, oh, is it really a hundred hours? Is it maybe just fifty hours, depending on the breed? But I mean it's it's it's quite significant. And and if you were a broiler, you would be happy that you were of a different breed than those very fast growing ROS 308 or or whatever they're called.

James

I'll link some welfare up in research on this because they've done some of this pain track stuff where they try to measure the the different hours of pain from the various sources like lameness, not being able to move around, or like cardiovascular problems because their heart can't handle how fast they grow, all this crazy stuff. Exactly. And yeah, I guess you mentioned one of the reasons why maybe this was easier for Norway to do it is because they don't export and import as much. Is there anything else you think besides that that means Norway seems to be doing so well? Whereas other places, even Europe, let's say the UK is not doing particularly well. Definitely, I think maybe like Spain, less could be why is Norway so progressive on this issue?

Toby

I think, at least from our point of view, we we've put in a lot of resources into this. So I think that's maybe something that in in some countries, I think we're doing better simply because we are prioritizing it very hard. And then we're taking a country-specific approach. So we don't go with this textbook kind of approach and just say, okay, now we just need to push hard for this and that. And we kind of already know before we start what we're gonna do. It's like we probably have a thesis, we go out and test it, we talk to companies, we actually take whatever we get back and we feed it into our own thinking and say, okay, so what is needed here? So, like, at least one of the things that we've done both in Denmark and Norway is to use a word for for fast-growing breeds and not just say fast growing breeds. Uh we saw that the the Netherlands did this already many years back. They used Plofkit, which means exploding chicken or something like that. Then in in Denmark and Norway, we use the term turbo chicken to link it to the fast turbo growth of these breeds. And these terms have become so popularized that they were actually uh taken into the official dictionary. So now you can go to the dictionary and you can see turbo chicken. So I think that speaks to something that we didn't just go out there and and did, I wouldn't say random stuff, but you but you know what I mean. Like we we actually went in and said this is a very high priority. I've been personally in like internal being the one saying we should put more race resources into this and more resources so we don't spread ourselves too thin. I think this is a common mistake that can happen in our movement that we want to cover so many things that we end up not covering so much because we don't have the full resources. And even the resources we put into it now, I would argue, is is not sufficient overall. I think we should you know prioritize it even higher to optimize for winning.

James

In terms of priorities, you mean spending a large amount of Anima International's kind of a global budget on just Norway, just broilers, or do you mean do you mean something else?

Toby

I mean also internally. So in in Norway, broilers have been the number one issue we've worked on for say six years. And and and and the number two is a distant number two. So so it's it's been maybe 80% of our efforts have been put into broiler work. Whereas in, you know, may maybe in other groups it would be 25% or 20%. And I think that is the the main problem here that you really need to optimize. I think in Denmark right now we might have seven people working primarily on broiler chicken welfare, which arguably is quite a lot in a small country. But I would even say we could easily be 20 or 25 people doing this work to be more effective. And then if you take at like a larger country in Europe, that that would be the equivalent of having maybe 40 or 50 people working there. And I don't see any groups having this kind of resources there. And and I think it's because we just come from a place of trying to do so many things in the movement, and even you know, some of us maybe started on a volunteer base and just being able to do full-time work on this and maybe having one or two people dedicated to a specific campaign is a lot. Uh, but I think we need to evolve from there and saying, well, actually, if we want to change something for you know 100 million birds, then maybe we should put even more resources into it rather than just relying on what what we could do uh maybe 10, 15, 20 years back and hoping that we will still do it. Of course, it's still possible, but I I just like increasing the chances of winning by actually you know really putting in the resources that is that is needed.

Why animal groups should focus on fewer issues

James

Yeah, and I guess probably some of this is because I think I assume Norway went, you know, banned cages, like stopped using caged eggs a long time ago, whereas in other countries people are still working on that issue. And do you think like your solution to that is almost do things more sequentially, that people groups shouldn't even move on to broiler work until they've almost entirely wiped out cages, i.e., like 80%, 90% plus of the industry is cage-free. Like how would you approach that for countries that are less developed?

Toby

Yeah, I I think I'm a bit conservative in this way that I would I would rather optimize for you know winning one thing at a time. But I think that's also just because we are where we are, where like most groups just have, you know, say a handful of people uh employed in a country, or maybe 10 or 20. So it's still relatively few. So it's probably just about having a realistic uh view of what can 10, 15, 20 people do. Can they actually realistically work on five issues and be hugely successful on all of them? I mean, I'm not saying that we can only work on one issue, obviously, but but maybe we should have one main priority and then the others being more like what do you call it, uh experimenting maybe, or or being more like, okay, let's see what we can have what we can achieve here.

James

Yeah.

Toby

So so definitely I I would be more conservative leaning in in this way. But I mean sometimes it can also be a blogger that you're like, okay, we haven't won this yet, so now we can't start anything. Uh so that could also just set us down back 10, 15 years because we we don't take any chances at all.

James

I generally do think focus is good, and I probably agree like you know, on the margin, more groups should try, you know, go yeah, like I said, all in on something, try finish it, spend maybe 60% plus the resource on one program. But I guess like the two drawbacks I see is one is that maybe you don't know when to quit, and actually you're not gonna win this thing, but you're too stubborn and like you don't like losing, so you don't quit. And maybe the other one is I think focus maybe has a related downside where almost I think people campaign is can get a bit burned out from I've just been working on broilers for 10 years and I haven't seen much progress, and like, oh, I'm so disillusioned. Like, yeah, what are your thoughts on these two challenges and do you have these internally?

Toby

I very much agree on on the human side of it. I mean, I've I've done broiler work now for nearing 10 years, and and I can feel the the drain it has, and I I've seen the drain on other people as well. On the other hand, like if things are not really working in your favor, then switching to another campaign might not be the real solution. I think especially if we talk about it from cage-free to broiler, I would argue broiler work, at least with what we're trying to achieve with it, is maybe five times as hard as cage-free work. So if you have a problem finishing up cage-free work, then moving on to broilers will be like to me a disaster, really. Because like if if if you're not able to win the cage-free thing, I I would argue very hardly that it's totally unrealistic that you would win the broiler campaign. So I think in that case, if it's like, okay, people are beginning to burn out or lose motivation, then at least we should pick something that is more winnable uh and then build from there. And and I think that that's also something to be very aware of, that it's very important that we pick winnable campaigns and targets so we can build on that, because even like a long win can make you know quicker wins later on. If you develop like you know, a branding of, oh, this is this is the the organization that always win, then maybe we can actually cut some years later on when we try to do other stuff rather than oh, this is the the organization that just switches to a different topic. Uh so we we just have to duck and cover and and hope that they get fed up and do something else. So don't don't give in or don't don't play along.

James

Yeah, yeah. I think it's interesting to have your kind of like subjective thing of maybe the broiler work is five times as hard based on I guess you're looking at how much more resistant the companies are, maybe how much more of a change it requires and how longer it's taking. So yeah, I think that's interesting. And I guess on this knowing when to quit thing, I guess like how does Anima think about this? I guess probably most of the times I've seen Anima stop doing work, it's been because you actually don't think it's the best thing for animals, or uh but maybe maybe more on the grounds of I I think an example is like the the live carp stuff in Poland, you actually thought maybe it was having in average and negative effects on fish. So it's not for like winnable reasons, but I I guess have you had this thing internally where you've stopped a campaign because actually you thought this is not the best use of our time anymore. We think it's very hard to win and we should do something else.

Toby

Um, so I would say in in Poland we at least decided to scale back on the broiler campaign because we saw that a lot of work was still needed for the cage three and we weren't making a lot of progress. So probably for too long we were doing broiler work in Poland that wasn't really worth it, and and we weren't realistic enough about how challenging it was to win this campaign in Poland. Yeah. So I think that's probably a good example of it. Uh, and and probably just something that begs the question like with all the work that we do, like don't take decisions lightly in a sense, because once you decide to do something, once you decide to open a program, you're committing a lot of resources because it's much harder to stop something in a sense. Like uh also some people they get very like personally invested in something, and um myself included, if if I've been working on a campaign for two or three years, I want to see it through. I mean, unless I can see that okay, it was totally flawed and and we shouldn't have done it. But if it's not clear to me, then someone else has to, you know, convince me that okay, I mean, it's it's it's not working. So that's really something to be aware of.

James

Totally. Yeah, I think there's all kinds of things like whether it's some cost fallacy or just oh, it's literally your job is the broiler campaign's manager, and if the campaign goes, you go. So of course you you'd feel rightfully kind of uh like concerned. About this change.

Toby

On a more micro level, in a sense, I think we see the same problem with you know specific targeted campaigns against a certain company for like the same topic that could be broilers, that could be cage-free. That I think historically we've seen groups changing targets too often. So it's like after six months, twelve months, like people get a bit burned out, or they're like, oh, maybe it was the wrong target, let's switch. And I think that companies are paying attention to this and and they see the the script and they're like, okay, like historically, if we just you know hold on for like four more weeks or four more months, they will get fed up and they will go do something else. And I think that's that's really bad for us because then when we actually decide to go all in, then the companies will not believe that we're going all in and and they will just hold on for too long. So I think it's important that we build our like credibility part that when we actually decide to do something, we are in it for the long haul and not just for for some months.

Focusing on commitments vs implementation?

James

Yes, I totally agree. I want to come back to that, so hold that thought. I think that's a very important point that I want to discuss. Maybe maybe we'll do like one final thing on Norway, then we can maybe transition to this the general like approach to campaigning. Uh and the thing is, but yeah, you kind of mentioned the commitments, they're relatively short term. I I think they said 2027, I assume that means the end of 2027. Maybe can you say more about how like how difficult that was to accomplish? Or like is a general thesis of anima is almost trying to get companies to prioritize implementation rather than commitments, even if maybe there's no public commitment to show for some time?

Toby

Yeah, I I think the part about commitments versus implementation is very important in the movement. I think for many years, a lot of groups have relied on commitments being almost as if it was a legally binding contract and you would get uh some compensation or something if the company didn't follow through. And and I saw that very early on with the broiler campaign being like, oh, working with broilers back in 2018 or 17 and then asking companies to sign up for a commitment for 2026, not knowing, like maybe the companies didn't even know what the cost would be of this, and maybe the people who signed up would not be along in the company five, six, seven years later. So quite quickly we decided that we want to see implementation happen, you know, as soon as possible, like preferably in a matter of months or at least within a year or two, so we can actually see the companies they they follow through. So this is also what we've been doing in Norway, and this is also what brings more credibility from the producer's point of view when they actually see the companies are doing stuff and are just saying stuff. I mean, we've been warned, for instance, uh in in in the UK with uh KFC, they they had made a commitment for uh the better chicken commitment or the ECC, it's the same thing. And and we were warned by some suppliers saying, well, we like many years back, like we we simply don't believe they're gonna do it. And and and they were right about that. And and it turns out just many years later that I mean they probably didn't even do it in good faith. They just did it. And and and that's a problem. So we want to see if companies do it in good faith. Otherwise, we're just giving them a pass for many years, and then we're losing the momentum. So sometimes we believe that we get momentum by getting a commitment, but sometimes it can actually have the exact opposite effect. And so this is part of the reason I think we've had success in Norway is because we can get companies to do stuff on the short term. So the industry believes that it's doable, so they they eventually will be motivated to actually do stuff because they can see that there is a a market for it.

James

Yeah, because yeah, that definitely one of the concerns, like one of the uh reasons why I've seen others in the UK have claimed they can't do this is oh, there's no sluggering breed kind of production or supply. Like we couldn't do this even if we wanted to. And of course, the the I think the reasonable retort is well, you you could have started this, you know, eight years ago. And does that mean a quite like something you said you were doing this in Norway right from the beginning? So, like what it actually looked like tangibly? Well, you're asking companies to say, hey, I need I I want you to do 10% slow going breeds by six months or or one year, rather than saying do 100% in eight years.

Toby

To me, a negotiation is you come up with your like, what is your deal thing? It's like, yep, go 100% ECC as fast as you can. And and then you see how the company responds and you see what is actually realistic in the context, seeing what are other companies doing, what is actually realistic, and then you go from there rather than saying, oh, what is the least we can accept? Oh, would that be own brand products in six years' time? I mean, if we go in starting like this, it's uh to me, it's not even a serious negotiation. Quite often we try to get them not to go 10%, but to go as close to 100% as possible. Also because most companies, if they are doing something, they actually want to like if they are going to tell the world, they they are not going to tell the world we will do something in five or six years' time. That's not going to be very marketable for them. So if it's all also interesting for them, it's it's cooler to say, yeah, we'll do it in six months or we'll do it in one year. So so that's what we're aiming for. But but in some instances, we have had to you know meet meet them halfway. So in in Denmark, some of the retailers they have just gone, say, 30, 40 percent on slower growing breeds by now, and and they started from maybe 5% or 10% some years back, and and that's what we've been able to achieve. That was not what we set out to do, but but after you know having had five, six, seven meetings, and and you can see okay, this is this is where we can land for now, then sometimes you just have to accept something and just tell them up front that I mean this is not ideal, but this is just good enough for us to you know accept it in a sense and actually maybe also celebrate it publicly, which is also an important part of uh what we do here.

What fair cop means

James

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Except as in like not campaign against it and we'll kind of leave you be for the time being, kind of thing. Well, not leave you be, but not do a big public campaign. Yeah, yeah, that that as well. I think yeah, that's a very good segue into, I guess, why the main reason why I want to speak with you today, which is about this, I guess like I don't know how we we call it new approach to campaigning, or definitely like new terminology where you know traditionally people in the movement have spoken lots about good cop and bad cop, and this is a very familiar set of roles, whereas you and others in Anima are coining something new. You're calling it Fair Cop, although I know you don't like the name, we we can talk about this, but maybe do you want to say more about what it means to be a fair cop and why you thought this new kind of like approach was useful?

Toby

Yeah, sure. I I mean the thing is I think for so many years that I've been part of this movement, I've been doing this work for more than 15 years now, and I think a lot of people they're talking about this, oh, I'm more like a good cop, or I'm more like a bad cop, and and it becomes a little bit like a theater or some some role play. But I think that's also a bit dangerous because you might fall into these certain roles that if you are bad cop, then part of what you do is you meet with companies and you put up demands and you're being very firm and and you're not you know backing down. And and and I think it it can become very scripted the way you go about and do things. Like, you know, some of the bad cop thinking is like, oh, you're not here to solve the company's problems, like the their problems are their problems, you're just here to to state what needs to be done. And I always had a funny feeling around this, like even when I started doing this kind of corporate work that was uh many years back, and that was with fur and the fur issue and getting uh uh fashion companies to go fur-free. And in the beginning I had no clue how to do this work, and I like I was like, why am I sitting here? And and what how can I put up any demands and what do I say next when they say this? Like I was so confused. So so it to me it was like you know, a bit of hard learning, like what can we actually do? And and it took me a lot of years to to actually get really much into it and and in a sense be more curious when working with companies. So, like on the one hand, I'm probably the most critical person you can find about you know society and coming. I I generally have very low trust in in institutions and society, but at the same time, I have you could say a higher trust in people in general. So, so I mean, people representing companies are still people, they also have a role they are filling out and and just trying to really understand what they are motivated by, what are they doing? And and if they are stating something like, oh, we're getting our products from this supplier, and they say this is great, then rather than just saying, no, but you need to abide by these standards, then we would actually spend time saying, Okay, that's interesting. We'll get in touch with that supplier, we'll have a dialogue with them. We're trying to see if we can solve the problems. And then, you know, sometimes this leads to a dead end, and it's like it was, in a sense, a waste of time. But in almost every case, you get more information and then you're better skilled in the next conversation because now you're talking about real things rather than just having, you know, the same presentation you could show to any company and and they're just being treated like a number rather than real people with like, you know, real objections. And the way we talk to the companies is not about objection handling. It's not like, oh, if they say this, then you say that. And it's like, oh, we'll just go into it. And and quite often we know some stuff because now we have multiple information. We have it both from this company, we have it from another company, we have it from a producer, we have it from other industry people, and then we combine all this. And then I don't know how much that relates to fair cop per se, but it relates to like a more curious approach where we're not just here to be angry, or the other way being like the good cop, just being like, oh, let's just understand and everything, let's have some coffee and let's meet again in a year's time. We're kind of the the in-between. We we have some leverage, we can say, well, we are able to do campaigns, but but we also like if companies do good stuff, well, we'll all we will also celebrate them publicly. So they actually so we are building some relationships. So it's a lot about building relationships, which which is also makes it the terminology cop maybe a little bit weird, which you also alluded to. That uh or what is the right term here? I I'm not sure, but but it it it had to break with the good cop, bad curb terminology because I think that confuses a lot of people because they feel like they have to be either this or or the other thing, and and they don't know if if there is like a kind of a middle ground that actually has more benefits uh from both sides of it.

James

For people who aren't listening on video, I would encourage you to check out the video or or or we'll link to an article where there's diagrams, but I think that there's some nice diagrams you've made, which is it the spectrum goes from collaborative to confrontational, where the good cops you know are clustered around collaborative in terms of their tactics, and the bad cops tactics are centered around confrontational. And your view's fair cops kind of straddles both of these, maybe doesn't go as extreme into the collaborative or as extreme into the confrontational, but they have a wider range than both of them. And you know, and you're kind of saying this kind of helps you rather than almost like playing into persona, you just have to be more flexible based on the needs of that particular company and that particular country, even. Is that roughly how you think about it?

Toby

Yeah, and also just you know, having a more human side to do this work, so it doesn't like you're not here to just go and tell someone what to do. I mean, nobody likes to be told what to do. And you can just imagine if you were at a dinner party and you came across as you kind of the typical bad cop, just for that. Like people would be like, who are you to speak like this? So I mean, if if you start off being a good cop in a sense, if we are to use that term, and just be as fair and as nice and as friendly as you can until proven otherwise, even if you have this kind of idea that, oh, maybe this company will just fool you in a sense. Like, but but let them understand that you understand that they are fooling you by actually taking the time. So and and and it's kind of like my colleague Connor and I from the UK Like, we we we spend a lot of time talking about this because sometimes he he can be like, oh, but but then I know the company will say this, so why shouldn't I just already in the email write this? And I'm like, nope, let it play out. Like, like, don't assume it. Probably there's a 90% chance you're right. But if we already start, you know, assuming what they will say next, it it makes for a weird relationship because we just already know their script. Just like, you know, play in good faith and then let them kind of set their own traps in a sense, saying, like, oh yeah, we care a lot about animals, and then later on they show that they don't, and then you can say, well, actually you said this, and now you're not doing this, so this puts us in a difficult spot. Uh then over time it becomes more and more uh you could say justified that that you become more confrontational because you all tried being collaborative, but they failed in a sense, and and you did your best, and you can show that you did it, maybe over a period of months or even years, and and now the company, in a sense, owes you something because maybe they promise some stuff that they're not upholding, rather than you just coming right off the bat being you know pushy and demanding, and then it's so much easier for them to dismiss you and say, Well, we don't want to talk to you. We we talked to the good cop. Uh, we've we've tried that with many companies being like, no, no, we like to talk to that other organization because they're not putting up demands. They're not, they don't say it like that, but but we understand why they say it, right?

James

Yeah. And maybe we'll we'll we'll focus on like the bad cop side of things for a while and how this is different. So I think I feel like more groups play into that, or I maybe I find that personally more interesting so we can talk about this. Yeah, you were kind of saying almost one of the reasons to you know engage with them in good faith. Uh and also I think Jan said this in the talk that I'll also link is you almost want to engage with them, yeah, kind of in like a respectful way, as if they are going to do something even when you think they're not. Almost so if they do, you know, stop engaging or pull back on their promises and you start a campaign, their response is something like, fair enough. Like we we deserved it. They treated us almost as good as you can treat it, therefore, we kind of deserve this. Is that kind of your your thinking around like what their response should be at the point you start the campaign?

Toby

Yeah, that's that's part of it because I think probably for many years, I I imagine a lot of organizations have not thought enough about the importance of diplomacy and the long-term game and and being very focused on what needs to happen now. So I think some groups may think, oh, we're just here to to put pressure at all at all costs.

James

Yes.

Toby

And not thinking about, okay, what if we have to meet them in six months' time or in one year's time or in three or four years' time? I mean, we we have a few examples with companies that don't want to meet with us just because we started a campaign that we even thought was fair, but the company didn't. If we had had like more of a pattern of switching targets all the time, we might find ourselves in a situation where there's so many companies we couldn't talk to. We see it unfortunately quite a bit uh in Poland where we work because for quite many years we have not paid enough attention to these dynamics. So the tone has been a bit more harsh, a bit more rough. Uh, and a lot of companies are like, ah, we don't really want to deal with you, or that being like, we don't really trust you. And you know, trust is a little bit like muscle, it's uh very slow to gain and very, very fast to lose. And so it's also keeping that in mind. So it's not only about what they think right now, it's also about what can you do later on. And now we talk about broilers, what are we talking about in five or ten years? Like these companies that need to maybe not trust. I think trust is also important, but also just kind of have a sense that it's kind of reasonable what we're doing. It has to be difficult for them to criticize us in the sense of being, oh, you're just outrageous, because we don't need to be outrageous. I think it's just something we sometimes become, but we don't have to be outrageous in order to make a difference.

James

Yeah, yeah. I think yeah, that's a really important point in that. Yeah, for example, if you're engaging with the retailer in your in your country, odds are you will need to keep talking to them for as long as you want to keep helping animals because they are probably one of the most important players. So, yes, you almost shouldn't burn your credibility, you know, saying if you don't do this in two weeks, we're gonna do the most you know crazy campaign of all time. And then lo and behold, you don't actually do this campaign. It it doesn't matter that much because yes, like in six months, like every time you say this, they'll be like, these guys are nuts, let's just ignore them. They're not serious.

Toby

It becomes the the the fable of the boy who cried wolf. So it's like then when the wolf is coming, nobody will believe you. So if if you do all this semi-bluffing, bluffing all the time, I mean it's it's it's not really part of the the good negotiation game in in my book. I mean, if this was the only encounter you had, and you know, I guess the hostage situation is pulling a gun to your kid. I mean, okay, maybe that's the time where you say, Yeah, I'll I'll I'll I'll have a million dollars, I'll give it to you straight away just just to save your kid. But but I mean, this is ongoing for many years. You you you can't just do that all the time. It's not gonna work. It might work. You can fool some people some of the time, but not all of the time, all these kind of ideas, right?

James

Yeah, so it it reminds me of Osong Tian, also Madame International, who said there's this game that he and others love playing, Twilight Imperium, where it's so focused on your reputation that you might actually lose one game because people think about playing with the same group of people over years because the community is quite small, such that you know, even if you could almost cheat someone or lie to win a one game, you shouldn't do that because overall that's gonna harm you over the next five or ten games. And it seems like it's a similar analogue for how you should engage with with retailers or food companies as an advocacy group. Is that kind of right?

Toby

Yeah, I think it's a very important thing to be aware of. Like when it's a little bit related to the bluffing part. Like if you do bluff, I think if you play a game like poker, it's part of the game, so people expect people to bluff, and it's not considered wrong because it's it's it's part of the rules, you're allowed to do that. But if you do that in in social settings, you're basically just lying, and it will be found out, that's gonna reflect very badly. And I mean, I I had an experience the other way recently with a company, and they they kept saying that oh, they they can't like go the full switch to slower growing birds because basically there are not enough eggs on the market and in the breeding part, and and they talked about it as if it was like an impossibility. And I just happened to know enough people in the industry so I could like fact-check this. So my intuition was this does not sound right. I mean, it's true that it will take longer than we would like, but it could be fixed within a year's time. And I had to speak to numerous people like in the industry just to have it confirmed, and then I could kind of feed it back to them. But what happened now is my trust in them has lowered significantly, and I know when they say stuff, I cannot trust it by default because now I know at least one time where I couldn't trust them. And this is kind of the thing where they could have said all kinds of other things, they could have been more honest, they could just have said we are less motivated to do so, and we understand that this must be annoying to you, and then I would have, you know, respected them more. And and I think this is the analogy like with the Twilight Imperium or whatever game, and probably a lot of listeners are not unfamiliar with it. But it's like if you have this game you play repeated times and you like it could also be risk like conquer the world and stuff, and you're like, oh, let's make a deal, and then haha, I just stabbed you in the bag, and it's like, okay, I'm I'm not gonna make deals with you again. And and it's it's just so painful. Like reputation is one of the most, and credibility is one of the most important assets that we have. And if we gamble with that, we're gambling with our future success. Uh so I think that's also what what what you're suggesting with with the question here.

James

I think that there's something you mentioned in the article, which is also around the lines of you know, you're gonna put it in a poker analogy where yeah, if you, for example, you're gonna say, Are you gonna go all in and we're gonna do this huge campaign, but actually, even if you go all in, you maybe have a hundred chips and your opponent has a million chips, and you know, if they if like realistically you can't actually inflict that much damage on them, and maybe this is somewhat of a a bitter pill for us to swallow that actually, you know, yes, my 10-person campaigning group, my 20-person campaigning group can't force this multi-billion dollar company to do what it's want. Like, that's shouldn't be surprising. Maybe sometimes it's like a hard thing to swallow. And that seems like that's another rationale that's driving this thinking.

Toby

Yes, that's a lot of it. It's uh I think a lot of people in the movement over the years have had probably too high thoughts of ourselves. And and sometimes it can also come after, say, a gold rush, such as cage-free commitments. If you suddenly get, you know, 200 or 500 cage-free commitments in a few years, then the sky's the limit, then you think, oh, we're so powerful, we're gonna hit them like a steel train. Like all this kind of metaphors, I think they have been, you know, flourished around in in the movement, and then it takes a long time to kind of swallow that pride and be like, okay, actually, we're the ones being fooled right now. Like a lot of companies are signing up to commitments, they're not following through. What does that say about the whole situation? Like, we even see companies band together, like in in the UK, and now some big restaurant groups, KFC, Nando's, others, they're like forming a sustainable chicken forum. Like, it's very hard to believe that that it has anything to do with you know good intentions. It's it's more like backtracking. So they can do this, they can fool us because right now we're not strong enough. If we were stronger, they wouldn't do it. And and admitting to ourselves that we're not that strong is actually powerful to me because that means that when you're at the table negotiating with these companies, you're not making these mistakes that you would do if you had the smallest army in the world and and and you knew it, then it's like, okay, we have a small arm army, but it's like it's still a good army that we have, and we know how to use it and when to use it. So we don't just, you know, left and right, just talk about okay, we're gonna launch this big thing. Like when we launch a big thing, we Maybe we need to plan for it for six months or a year. And maybe we need to tell the company up front that we're going to do it, also in the hopes that maybe they will change their mind along the way so we can save these resources. But if we do it, then we just have to really, really do it and prove that we are able to do it when we really want to, but we can't do it every day. That's simply not possible with the size we have right now.

James

Can you almost like give an example of a case where maybe Anima has moved to escalation or a campaign and almost how long it took or how much you're willing to put into it as an example of because it seems like one of the takeaways I'm having is you should do less small campaigns that you're not going to stick with, and when you go when you go in, you go really hard, and then you kind of stick with it, and you you're in for like maybe several years, like very big project.

Toby

And like maybe you could give an example of this if that's I mean in in Denmark, we've we've almost only had one retailer campaign. We've had two, I would say. Uh, but but most of it has been targeting one single retailer, and that has been going on for probably four years' time or so. To be honest, I'm I don't think we have managed to put as much pressure as I would have liked, because it has been, you know, on and off as it is often with these kind of campaigns. It's hard to keep up momentum for four years straight every day of the week. But I mean, you know, there has been a lot of pushes and it has, you know, it it has done quite a lot. And I mean that company has also done a lot of implementation now to go to slower growing. But but also something I think some people might miss here is when you do a campaign targeting one company, you're also showing this to all the other companies. And and I think it's very important not to make too many enemies because the more enemies you make, then you know suddenly we are the ones being surrounded, and they can, in a sense, campaign against us by you know withdrawing their commitments or uh going out with you know negative stories about us. So it's I think it's important that we we know how few enemies we should make. And even when we make enemies, try to not make them enemies. Just try to be straightforward with them, saying, okay, now we've tried for a year, two years through collaboration and dialogue to reach something. We're not able to. Now we will move on to the next stage, which will be this, but we can still talk at the same time. And I think with some companies, we've managed to have a very good dialogue while also having a pretty good campaign. And I think that's valuable whenever you can have that, because at some point you you want to get back to the table and and and make a deal. And and if you've kind of you know pissed off everyone, then I mean it's it's really hard. Like I think sometimes you can see companies not wanting to make a deal just because they don't want to do space, and and that's a real problem when when our tactics become so harsh that that maybe because of the tactics, then the company would rather just uh stick to it and be proud of uh not giving in uh and these kind of things.

James

There's the case that you wrote about, which is I think it was a group that was a company that was gonna drop its K3 commitments, and you know, you may maybe like the instinctive response could have been, we're gonna do a campaign. But for mindstanding, you kind of engage with them in like a more of a, you know, assuming the best of intentions kind of way, that like, okay, we'll try to work with you to do this. And this took, you know, months and months, and you kind of probably waited longer than other groups would have to launch a campaign. Maybe do you want to say more about this example as well?

Toby

Yeah, yeah. So we had a company that was kind of suddenly changing the scope of the cage free commitment. So suddenly it wasn't everything as they used to say, and their communication with us was really, really weird and what do you call like avoidant in a sense and confusing and and also sometimes just arrogant, but maybe not, you know, on purpose. It was very hard. It was kind of deciphering some ancient tombstones or something. It was very, very hard. And and I remember my colleague was like, this is just so annoying. I think we should just go into campaign mode. I was like, nope. Whenever there is still some opportunity for avoiding a campaign, because once you start the campaign, that could just mean that the company becomes even more, you know, hostile or non-collop collaborative. So so I think what tipped the scales here was like the patience, but also the fact that we had actually celebrated them earlier and we could point towards that. So we actually had some leverage in a sense. So if we were only like a good cop, like, oh, then we couldn't even put up any demands. But also, if we were only a bad cop kind of organization, we probably wouldn't have praised them because I mean it's not our job to praise them for something that is not great, like they have to praise themselves. So having that kind of combination of having provided positive value and also being able to read between the lines and being patient and giving some benefit of the doubt, I think that just came to this conclusion that that they actually went back to what they said initially. And then we actually went out and and and and you know celebrated them public, and then we're very happy. And I think people they kind of underestimate sometimes how important it is to spend some time. Like if you were ready to spend a thousand hours campaigning or 5,000 hours campaigning, why wouldn't you spend you know a hundred hours doing something positive when they actually do what you want them to do? Because by doing that, you're signaling to the rest of society and to the rest of organizations that companies that this is a good thing to do and this is something they would maybe also want to have this praise. But also the company that is being praised, they feel like they're being held more accountable in a sense, because now they are maybe praising themselves or they're giving a quote and they're like, okay, we actually celebrated ourselves, now we really have to deliver. Rather than this being their number 25 priority, then maybe it becomes their number five priority. And and that's really important, especially if five years later they're changing their mind a little bit again. Then you have this kind of history to go back to and say, hey, do you remember what happened? And they're like, Oh, oh yeah, we actually owe you something, or we owe ourselves something, or the animals, or like in whatever way you want to put it.

James

I don't know. Maybe I'm very cynical, but I guess like I've maybe thought less about the praise side of things. And I guess why wouldn't they just say, Oh yeah, you praise us, but oh well, like we're not doing this any like like thanks, that was nice of you, but like almost like we don't care what you did five years ago, this is irrelevant to us. Like, does that happen, or yeah?

Toby

I mean that that can of course also happen, but to give an example, like in in Denmark, we worked with some big companies that have you know made commitments for broiler welfare, and we have managed to get them like millions of impressions, like in mainstream media, just like on all the big media outlets, they have been praised for being, oh, this company is phasing out turbo chicken. So then it becomes much more committing to them because now it's about their credibility, it's not about just what does the supporters of anima think. It's more like what does the consumers think, what does the competitors think, what does journalists think. It's like, oh, this is a company that makes empty promises. I think that's pretty bad for a company because their credibility will be hurt by this. So we've tried situations with this, like this, where the company has then you know backtracked a little bit. And then when we were back at the at the table talking about it, you could you could sense a difference that they knew this had happened, like they had gotten this public praise, so they felt compelled to do something. Whereas if it had just been on their website, they could have just deleted, oh, we have other priorities now, we're sorry, like that. It was a good talk we had back then, but uh things have changed. That would be much more easy for them to write it off.

James

Yeah, that makes sense. And and I guess it's probably something in more in the media where if you're the organization that praised and like you're kind of like uh unbiased third parties giving praise and then they change, you you have a good story to say, look, they lied to us, we thought they were doing this, and that that's like another interesting tidbit.

Toby

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where you have a much better like uh leverage point now because you you were the one like forming the positive narrative. Now you also have the power to form the negative story, and and companies know that. So so it it basically just gives you more power, but it also puts the agenda of you know animal suffering or factory farming, like it puts it out there. So it's also just an opportunity for you could say awareness building and and getting people interested in in the case rather than everything happening under the radar and people not really understanding what's going on. I think it's important that we have significant support from the public with whatever we do, because otherwise it's hard to get to the next milestone.

James

We've spoken a bunch about bad cop stuff before we move on, or like how it's different, bad cop, traditional bad cop. Uh, is there anything else I've missed on like how is this different to traditional bad cop campaigning, or maybe what why you think it can work better?

Toby

No, I think we've covered it quite well. So I mean, what I can say is I think some people they have a tendency, and I think even in some organizations, you have kind of a quite clear division between corporate outreach work, talking to companies, and campaigning as if it's totally different entities. And and to me, that's a flawed way of thinking about it, because one thing will affect the other. So if if you have like a totally outrageous campaigning team that doesn't care about you know saying attacking the CEO's credibility, not even understanding how this could you know change the dynamics in the negotiation room, I think that's bad. I mean, you know, sometimes you should you know criticize the CEO, but but when you do it, you should know like the risks and the benefit and have this kind of you know assessments uh going on. So so at all times you need to consider like how will this impact the relationship with the company, what what's the upside, what's the downside, and and I think some groups don't consider that so much. It's more like okay, now it's just about you know making some ravage, just you know, making a story, whatever it takes, as long as it's uh legal, whatever. And and and I think uh it's it's it's more than that. So so I think having this these things work more closely together, I think that that optimizes for for bringing more results in in the long term.

James

Yeah, interesting. And so how does it work with anima then? So you don't have separate teams, you just have someone who's just called corporate engagement or campaigner? Yeah, how do you guys do it?

Toby

Yeah, so so often we have a team working with the issue, so that would be the broiler issue, but uh like people can do both parts of the work. They can do both the campaigning side of the work and the negotiation. I mean, not always, but at least these people will work together and they will talk together, not like okay, I've just handed it over to that other department, it's out of my hands now. We would never treat it like that. But that would be a big mistake, in in our opinion.

James

Yeah, so ideally it's almost the same people that are doing both functions, and then if not, make sure that they're working very closely as a team rather than at least they're able to.

Toby

I mean, sometimes it's also nice to be like, I'm mainly working with the corporate side, and now I'm mainly just handing it over to the other people, but it's not that I have no uh you know say in this, so it's like okay, I can I can talk to the people during the campaign, I'm not currently involved in it, but uh, but I agree with what is happening rather than oh, I I can't help it, and they're just doing their stuff. And I think at least that can be also become a bit theatrical in a sense. It's like, oh, yeah, it's the guy with the other hat. Like it also also becomes a little bit unbelievable from the company side. It's like, okay, what the fuck happened?

James

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, then I I think that yeah, that that's been very interesting on on maybe the differences to like traditional bad cop campaigning, which I I think you know, I probably spent more time on it because I think that is the majority of the movement that I see, or at least that I engage with, but m maybe more on the good cop side. How is this traditional to good cop campaigning? It's just being more willing to actually escalate and do campaigns, whereas most good cops don't traditionally do that.

Toby

Yeah, I think at least the impression most people have from the good cop, also I would say a lot of people already do kind of a combination of good cop and bad cop. So it can sound a little bit like, oh, either you're one thing or the other, and maybe that illustration we talked about before also shows that uh the bad cop uh sphere or like quite wide, and it can also be quite collaborative, but but not so collaborative. But at least with the good cop, it looks like that's much more narrow usually. So so those organizations that identifies more like good cups, they will hardly do any campaigning, or the campaigning they will do will be more like bringing some awareness to the issue, but not really telling the companies like too hardly what they want and why they think it's a it's a reasonable, you could say, demand. So I I probably said before, like we shouldn't put up too many demands, but at the same time we should still be able to. So it's it's a little bit like you know, understanding how to go in there and and be very you know self-confident about what we are asking for is reasonable, but it's not reasonable to just go in and expect it to happen straight away. It's like it's also reasonable to see things from like the counterparts' point of view and understand that if you had a business, you wouldn't just invest $10 million in something, not knowing if it would be successful, and and and us just dismissing that fact would be unprofessional, I would say. It would just be like very narrow-minded.

James

Yeah.

Toby

But then the good cup, they often fail in the sense that because they have no leverage, they just rely on the companies wanting to do this out of uh you know goodwill, or alternatively, that there are other campaigning groups that are able to exert enough pressure, so then the good cup work becomes easier because it's like, oh, they know that there are other people doing the heavy lifting part, and then they can just do the talking part, which I mean in a in a perfect world that could also work. But to me, it's still weird that you wouldn't like give yourself permission to be more firm at a meeting and be like, okay, come on, we've talked about this three years now, you're not moving. I mean, in our view, this is not acceptable, or this is weird, or this is not in line with you know expectations of society, and and this is something we we should make aware that your company is not doing anything. You're saying stuff, but you're not doing stuff. That's a problem. And I think we should allow ourselves, I think it's it's it's a weird situation if you're not giving yourself that option out of you know, some I don't know what the principles would be, but just like because we don't feel comfortable doing that. I think that would often be the reason it's just we don't feel comfortable doing this. And we need to be able to feel comfortable about, you know, at some point putting up some demands or at least you know drawing a line in the sand and say, okay, now we will escalate things uh from here because nothing is happening.

James

Yeah, I I guess the story you can tell yourself, and obviously I've never worked in spaces, oh, but if we're too critical, they'll stop working with us, and that means that their progress will be even slower than it is now. Therefore, we need to keep them on side. And and I guess in terms of leverage, the praise they give, right? If they do something good, this group can praise them. And I guess maybe yeah, you you see less often where the good cops also criticize what when things backtrack. Maybe this does happen, I don't see it. But I guess maybe that would be I guess one of the conclusions if they were to shift more into the flexible.

Toby

Yeah, I mean it happens a little bit. I think the good cops also has a bit of bad cop in them, and the bad cops also has a bit of good cop in them, but but it's it's kind of you know, having just a wider, it's just being able to play in more strings, so to speak. Yeah, I think that's just healthy. Yeah, and I think it also goes back to this role-playing. Then it's like if you identify as a good cop, then oh, I I would not like I'm I'm I I can't tell you what to do. And it becomes very limiting in the way. And also I think companies will respect you less because they they know that you're kind of maybe not a pushover, but it's like you're never gonna cross that line. But but if you're just being, I would say, more yourself, just being more authentic and saying, well, we're here to improve the lives of animals, we believe it's possible to do it in a collaborative way, but we also believe it's possible to do it in a more like arm-wrestling way. And and we are in a bit, we in a sense, we don't care which which way it's gonna go, we're just gonna go with the way where we see most change will happen, but we will do it in a fair and reasonable way. And this is where the maybe fair word comes in. It's like we don't want to escalate things too hastily because we wouldn't accept it the other way around. If you know, if someone just called you and say, I'm gonna sue you for this, this, and that, you would be like, okay, I'll just hang, I'll hang up and I'll call my own lawyer and say, Oh, well, I don't want to deal. And and the lawyer would say, Okay, don't talk to a person who who threatens you like this. And and it's kind of having that understanding of when are you able to turn up the heat. And and what I often say is like, you can always turn up the heat more, but you it's very hard to go the other way. You can't just, you know, start say for the sake of that, you can't start yelling and then talk, you know, calmly again. Afterwards, people will be like, hey, that was a change in in character, that that was unpleasant. Now I trust you less. Uh so it's like be be slow to escalate. That that would be my general piece of advice because there are so much so many companies want to influence, and we have so limited resources. So why should we burn the bridges too early? Why not just wait and see? Is it really is it really needed here, or is there a way forward without having to do it? Kind of the the lawful least resistance in a sense.

James

Yeah, and I actually I guess I think you alluded to this uh in the article, which is in a way, campaigning is very time-intensive, and even if you end up negotiating for longer to then win something, that's often still a better like a better use of your time in terms of a quicker route to impact compared to campaigning when you have to do some two-year campaign, which is like very labor-intensive. So it's almost like it's actually can be more efficient just to just negotiate for a bit longer.

Toby

Yeah, yeah. I think sometimes groups should even scale up on corporate outreach work and scale down on campaigning work because often when you campaign, you can just campaign one target, but when you do negotiations, you can you can work with 20 companies for the same amount of resources invested. So there's definitely a lot that can be saved by being being good at this and and having the necessary uh resources uh for doing it. But but it's also a harder skill in a sense, it takes longer to learn to be good. Just as I explained in the beginning, I I was pretty clueless how to do it, and it has taken me years to to reach a level where I feel much more confident, and I think I could still improve a lot from here. I think it's easier to learn the ropes of doing campaigning because you it's it's more turn-based in a sense. You can just wait and see. Whereas if you are in the room, you you cannot just sit silent and be like, okay, I'm just gonna call a friend and or ask the audience or something. So that's like the skill cap here is it's it's different for sure.

James

Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Maybe maybe a few more questions on this before I go into another topic. Another one is I guess what about almost bad faith actors or or people who have already put up the walls and they just won't engage with you at all. At that stage, do you think it's fine just to do whatever is required to get them to do whatever's needed for animals?

Toby

It's quite rare, I experience, uh like at least in in Denmark and Norway, that companies don't want to engage. It happens every now and then, maybe because we have run a campaign or because it just being very avoidant and just oh. But most of the time we're actually able to engage with them. But that's also comes down to I think our branding or credibility because we've spent years actually building up that kind of you know aura around us.

James

Yeah.

Toby

But but I mean, obviously, if a company is just is careless about it, and uh, we might just say, okay, I mean, we we sense that uh you're not able, you're not willing, you're not uh interested in talking. Uh so probably our next step would be a public campaign around this. But it might not be that this is the company where you think a public campaign is the most effective, it might be with a different company. So it's also like even in that instance, how often is it that you decide that now you need to escalate because you actually lack some information? Because that that's also the power of having multiple meetings with companies. You get a lot of insights, a lot of information, and and and that is something that can sometimes be undervalued also from like the good cop perspective. That's that's what they are very good at. It's getting much more information so they actually know where it hurts or or where it's difficult. Sometimes it may be a rylline situation that nobody thought about, and then it's like, oh, if only we can solve this part, then maybe there is a way forward rather than just exerting pressure through public uh outrage and these kind of things.

James

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, anyway, it's kind of good to know that it happens is relatively infrequent that someone will not engage in it at all.

Toby

So I guess maybe and maybe if if that's the case, then I think the more you've built up a kind of um you know aura of being like, oh, these people, they are reasonable and fair, and also they provide some value. So if you are actually able to perform media stories about, you know, this company has done this, this company has done that, and producers are seeing like there's more demand for these kinds of things. I mean, it's quite often that I write, you know, a CEO or something, and and they respond very quickly, like maybe within a day, because like we have seen changes happen in Denmark, for instance, where it work quite a lot. But then in other countries where not a lot of things are happening, it might take you know weeks or even months to get hold of a person because it's like it's so low on the agenda because not much is happening on on this issue, and we don't really know these people, and we don't even know if we can trust them and all these kind of things. So it just goes to show like how much can be built up over time if if people know you and and and they know you to be reasonable enough given like the the role that you're representing. Uh so this is something I think people can sometimes under undervalue because maybe they haven't experienced it themselves in in in to that extent.

James

Yeah, but it's it's a I mean I mean like I was thinking if you're if you're like a traditional bad cop group right now that's like basically only done negative campaigning and you're kind of quick to escalate. et cetera, et cetera. But then if you try to shift into this more fair corporate, flexible corp role, then maybe it's quite hard because you have this reputation which is unhelpful and maybe take some time to shed that. And maybe for that initial period, people will actually be ignoring you. So I guess did you have any tips on that?

Toby

Oh yes. I mean that's a problem. It could say yes because we are trying to do this more in Poland right now, I would say. And and it it's not easy. I mean it's definitely doable, but it takes time. And it it also took time in them because we weren't we weren't like this all the time. It's kind of something that has developed over time. We haven't had a framework or word for it. It's just it's kind of you know a way that I've been doing stuff. And in the beginning companies trusted us less because they knew all you are the guys doing campaigns. But now in our company presentation we can show oh you might know us mostly for these kind of you know bad stuff things. But actually what we also do is a lot of this and then we can show okay here's the story that we helped yeah the positive and then they're like oh oh this sounds more balanced. It doesn't sound like I'm just here like having to defend myself. It's like there's actually both some positive stuff and some negative stuff. It's it's a more interesting conversation. And it's not just a bad thing for them to to have this meeting whereas I think a lot of companies feel like oh here's this NGO again and and they're all they're only negative and it's just about stakeholder management now. We we're just handling them. And you can sense when people are just handling you. It's a weird feeling and you want to get like underneath that kind of shield and just be like normal people relating to normal people and then trying to drive forward you know some kind of progress with the whatever topic you're working with.

Anima's £1 million war chest for campaigning

James

Yeah yeah it makes sense. In this kind of vein of oh sometimes our campaigns aren't powerful enough because we're just a small thing. I know something I've heard of is Anima has this big war chest, this large pot of money I mean I won't say how much it is but like just uh such that when you do campaign against a group so in campaign against a company it's much more meaningful you know if you're only gonna have maybe like tens of thousands of dollars on the marketing spend or like whatever external resources not that much but if you have hundreds of thousands maybe in the low millions then you're like companies like wow maybe I should just get this over with. Can you talk more about that? Like should more groups do this? Like how does Anima think about this?

Toby

At least it's something we're thinking more and more about so I wouldn't say the science is inconclusive or whatever you say it it's it's not kind of proven that it's very helpful but at least we tried it so I can at least speak to it because it's it's also public. So in Norway I mean even though we've had a lot of progress we are not at the ECC level yet we don't have the stocking density sort of which is the second most important part of the ECC ask like there's a breed change and then there's a stocking density part. One of our main targets for getting there is McDonald's and and when we started a McDonald's campaign uh or restarted it whatever maybe a year back I can't remember the exact timeline we were like okay so what is the story going to be this time and then we were like how about that we state how much money we're gonna spend on this campaign? Like why why wouldn't that be a story? Because now we actually decided it could be around seven million Norwegian krona which would be maybe almost like a million dollars or something like that which is a lot in in a country of this size.

James

So it's a lot anywhere I think yeah it's a lot anywhere.

Toby

And still to me it's still not so much when you know how much advertising uh cost and everything so we probably we we would like to have five times as much but but what is actually the value of this change but but whatever at least we managed to get this as a as a headline and it's not that that headline in itself is so powerful that it says uh you know 7 million krona for a campaign but but maybe the alternative would be that it would have been hard for us to even make a headline because the campaign we had at this point was not you know that complex or anything it was just kind of standard like uh McDonald's uh needs to you know phase out fast growing chickens and they need to provide better stocking density with more space for the for the chickens but at least it was out there and I think McDonald's responded in a kind of defensive way in the media being like well we don't understand why they're going after us something like that and and to me at least that was an update towards that it has an effect and and and I'm kind of imagining what if we could do this more often and in a bigger way if we could really pool resources so so it's it's definitely something we are experiencing uh more with also in in the UK we are about to launch a campaign targeting uh prêt among pret among che whatever you however you pronounce it pardon my French even though I am half French it's still hard for me sometimes and and and in in that campaign we are also committing uh like a million pounds and and I think that will be part of the story it's it is at least part of what we're telling the company that we're ready to to spend that amount and and possibly even more if it has to drag on and and we're also telling them like we're in for the long haul and and I think that's that's important because I think otherwise they might think that oh what is a campaign they just look up in a dictionary or they look up at oh oh there was a campaign back then and then there was another okay so we have been selected for a three month campaign. Like they could easily make that conclusion but it's hard to make that conclusion if you can see oh they're actually putting up a lot of money. But I mean it it still has to be seen whether this in itself is uh something that tips the scales or if it's just you know an extra talking point in a sense whenever you do campaigning.

James

Totally yeah yeah I'm very curious to see how it goes both in the UK and Norway if it has to happen. But I guess like yeah I would like this for the example you mentioned before of it's not just the company that sees this as other companies that see this. You go, okay, you know, if the company doesn't commit and then you do spend it, they go, oh shit, these guys are actually pretty serious and if they say they're gonna spend this they will and it's gonna be pretty bad. And I I think an example is in the US there was a big campaign against our hotel Hayes who kind of dropped or weren't progressing their K3 commitments and that was a very large campaign and lots of resource spent on it and I think just last week they committed after you know two plus years of fighting. And I think that's a great signal for other retailers saying look we people had at this for multiple years they spent a lot a bunch of time and effort and and human labor on this and it worked. Therefore like you're next. So yeah I like this kind of demonstration effect. I guess somehow I I'm very excited for groups to almost build up more of a war chest and even that means you know expanding their staff less quickly but expanding you know maybe rather than spending $100,000 on staff you do that for a campaign war chest and I think probably you can inflict more damage on the company with that than an extra person. So yeah that's like something unincited about more groups doing.

Poker, backgammon and developing good judgement

Toby

Yeah good good campaigns cost a lot of money and I think we just need to to own up to that and and be ready to spend more money on campaigns. I think sometimes the budgets that we have would be laughable if you showed it to like a commercial company that wanted to advertise a product they would be like how how can you make a campaign like that for this amount and I think we need to just you know compensate a bit for that and be like okay let's let's be willing to spend more uh and and really you know win some win some stuff that was a very interesting whole uh discussion on on fair cop flexible cop whatever you want to call it I think Janel said maybe pragmatic cop but like he said that sounds a bit pompous and maybe not even cop maybe just you know exactly or not even authentic approach to working with companies but that sounds very weird and boring so call it whatever you like just understand that getting into very specific roles can be weird because it becomes becomes in inauthentic and and I think that in itself is quite bad. Yeah exactly exactly one thing you kind of mentioned is you enjoy playing poker and backgammon and other you know similar games can you say more about I guess why you do this and well I guess it's the fun album like do you think do you think it helps you to campaigning and do you think more campaigners should try these out yeah I mean uh since childhood I've been attracted to to these kind of brain games started with chess and then later on in life uh backgammon and poker and I think it's it's just interesting to get into this idea of you know how to optimize for winning stuff how to you know understand risk reward on a more practical level rather than on a theoretical level and and how to being able to handle losses how to you know improve intuitions all these kind of things so I think it it has a lot of benefits to get into these games and having some kind of framework for thinking about stuff. I think for instance a lot of people they think oh if there's only a 15% 15% chance of success why should we even do it and I mean if you've ever played you know poker and you see like oh my God I was 85% favorite and I still lost it was painful and you'd be like oh that 15% is quite good actually so so so being able to take some chances and and and understanding why is is important but also understanding the whole concept of you know how how scary is our organization when we say we want to launch a campaign how many chips do we hold at the table? I did a whole like presentation around this at the Care Conference kind of illustrating it like if we're asking for something small then maybe we are powerful but if we're asking for something big big we're not as powerful as we would like to think. So so I think there are many many things to this and and I think also just kind of exercising your brain around these concepts is is helpful in itself and if we can have like a common framework of talking about these issues I think that's helpful also.

James

A much more amateur aficionado of of both those games poker and and backgammon and yeah I I think there's something you kind of develop which is at least I I've heard you know I haven't experienced this because I haven't played that much poker is you know after playing maybe hundreds or thousands of hands you develop this intuition for you know when you should pull and maybe like bold and kind of pull out because you you don't have good probability or you should double down or even when someone's bluffing. So I think you kind of develop this intuition for when you should go big or pull out or like trying to like figure out people's social cues. So yeah I think it's an interesting thing you just like develop good judgment over time and that seems like something that probably does help with corporate engagement.

Toby

Yes and and and another thing also which I think a lot of people get wrong maybe in life in general is people are guided by what happened and and whatever happened meant that this was the right or the wrong thing to do. So I mean understanding that you can make a mistake and and still get away with it and win or understand that you could actually do the completely good thing and lose and and and having tried that multiple times being like okay so maybe more people are familiar with poker so maybe that's a better thing to like you you did a horrible thing and for some reason you got called and you had a really weak hand but then on the river you just hit the right card and you won then if you don't tell yourself oh this was a really horrible you know move that I made I should correct it but if you're like oh but I won so it was it must have been correct it's kind of the equivalent like if if I went to a company and I just you know did a very long boring presentation about the biology of chickens and blah blah blah blah blah and then the company for some reason they signed up to the ECC and I'm like whoa it's really good to talk about the biology of chickens but maybe that was not the reason it was just because for some reason they had a CEO who wanted to do it anyway and and I didn't I didn't increase the chances maybe I I did the opposite but but if you don't stop yourself sometimes and be like what we're doing optimizing for winning and it's not only based on the results the end results but you can also like read the room and see am I doing something now that is helping advancing the stuff or am I just being lucky right now? Like like having these kind of concepts is very very helpful if you want to improve your game.

James

Totally yeah yeah I like this idea of base being more process oriented and did you make the right decisions and you know would you make the decisions again rather than yes you just by chance happen to work out well and yeah you you shouldn't kind of be too happy with that scenario. So yeah I think it's interesting. Is there anything else you do or would recommend others do to try to develop you know better judgment or intuition around things like campaigning or advocacy?

Toby

I think just developing your intuition and having a higher trust in your intuition is very important. It's very hard to learn I think but I think we've all you know had experiences in life that can help us like to me you know also being a parent and having had to deal with a lot of difficult stuff has helped me enormously putting myself in the other person's shoes and really having the finger on the pulse understanding what's going on I think you know a lot of people have had you know difficult experiences in life that we can actually learn from and and and become better at reading the room like building up higher like you know confidence in ourselves so we can actually get into the room and be like on the one hand feeling like we know what's going on and we know what's important but on the other hand also like really being able to both feel yourself and feel the other person in the room like without having that ability if you can only like again using the poker analogy if if you only see your own cards in your hand like you play a horrible game of poker you have to see the other person. You have to understand and being able to empathize and sympathize to kind of keep building that skill because it's not just a skill of persuasion I I don't like to go into a room thinking I have to persuade the other person. It's more like I want to understand the other person. I want to under be truth seeking I think like sometimes people might go into this word being how how do I handle these objections or I just you know cherry pick you know some research or like okay maybe it doesn't cost so much to increase broiler welfare but ever actually being truth seeking and being like yeah it's true. It's quite expensive and knowing what it is and not trying to hide it if if it is but but still understanding why this is a problem for the company and speak to that I think that will improve both the way they see you but also the probabilities of of eventually succeeding what with whatever uh you're doing I agree like it's both very hard develop good judgment intuition but I also think it's incredibly important because I think also many of our jobs kind of revolve on this.

James

You know maybe for me it's I have to develop some judgment of will a group be able to achieve what they're saying and they're trying in a new context. Maybe for you it's you know judging whether like how true is this company's excuses like are actually trying like will they fold all this kind of stuff and similar to poker I guess I I've gone to the habit of trying to make more bets with people. If we disagree on something I'll just say you know let's bet and we'll say whoever loses has to give $10 to the Shrimp welfare project and we'll bet in this thing it's a nice way of seeing do you have kind of true or good beliefs around the world and you want to be accurate when you can lose something.

Toby

This is also why I think it's good to play these kind of games where there's something at stake whether that be you know rating points or like pocket money, whatever but but it like it has to hurt a little bit otherwise it's hard for you to improve it if if everything is just in a sense for fun, if you don't feel some pain when a company like when you don't win a campaign like where's that hunger gonna come from from actually making the change so having this kind of competitive mindset without you know being you know a jerk uh I I think that's that's that's that's helpful. I don't know if it's helpful for everyone but I think it's helpful for a lot of people at least for myself. Totally.

Good News, recommendations, and where to find Anima

James

No, I I find that and yeah I totally agree that if you know otherwise you just say one thing and then you know something else happens and you go oh I actually said something different and it's kind of like never immortalized whereas if you make a bet and put money on the line, you know both parties will member exactly what was said. So yeah this has been a very fun conversation and before we close we always have kind of three kind of classic closing questions.

Toby

The first one is what's one bit of news you're excited about or grateful to hear recently I mean obviously the whole thing that happened in Norway that we talked about that to me is like proof that we can make these changes even if it sometimes takes five or ten years time which is a bit painful in itself but it's like it's it's it's possible to do these monumental shifts and I think you also mentioned the a whole delays campaign in the US I think it's very important that it actually happened that some resolution was found because this in the best case scenario at least it could pave the way for more retailers starting to implement because that has been kind of the Achilles heel in the in in the in the US campaign for cage free and the thing is if if the US is not able to go cage free I mean how is it gonna happen in the rest of the world and I mean we we should be able to to crack that nut yeah so so I think to me that was kind of a a relief I don't know all the minor details like if if this was the best possible outcome that came with like the the steps they're gonna take but it was definitely in in in in the better end uh so so I'm hoping that uh that we will see more of this so it it's it's in a time where we don't see too many good news I'm I'm I'm even more happy when when it finally happens yeah yeah I agree I think that's two big wins both in Norway and in the US yeah I agree.

James

It's been a good couple weeks. Do you have any media recommendations for listeners, books, articles, podcasts that kind of helped informed your thinking and encouraged others to read?

Toby

Yeah it's a it's a tough question for me because I feel I'm quite deep in the trenches in a sense of just doing trial error and learning from real life I don't think there are that many good resources out with the specific work that I do not to say that I've uh you know combed through everything and and I know it and and I'm not the best reader myself. I used to be more many years back and now I'm just more like in in in the trenches. I think I read a book called Never Split the Difference that I found helpful at the time about negotiation. I think it has some some interesting concepts and and it aligned quite a lot with like some of the thinking I had myself I don't know if I read it today if I would love it the same but at least I think it it could be helpful for people. But then apart from that I think finding ways also just to calm your mind is sometimes good. So whether that be meditation music or or even to me like some of these brain games just helps me like stimulate my brain but also like gets my brain away from all the serious like oh we need to win this and that and then it's like oh this is simple stuff I'm moving some checkers around and I mean to me that's in a weird way it's both relaxing and challenging at the same time. So that works for me and maybe other people have other things whether that be painting or running or swimming or like just also knowing that it's not all about learning all the time. Maybe learning can happen while you do the work and then maybe some unlearning or some relaxation is also equally important to to balance your own life.

James

Yeah I I totally agree. It's good it's good to have a a life outside of the world and again it kind of goes back to uh as an animal stuff you can also empathize more with other people you meet someone you go oh hey you like this thing I also like this thing. Having a life is good.

Toby

Yeah it's a controversial opinion yeah okay the final thing is how can people follow either you or anima's work and what are the best places to do so probably our website animainternational dot org that would also be a place if people want to you know find job postings they can find it there I mean we are also present on social media so I think people can just look for anime or anime international brands we are in six different countries so at least we cover some some area of uh the listeners here but uh but but but we are European based uh for the time being nice nice very cool well well Toby thanks this has been super interesting to I guess learn more about this approach and I guess hear about the amazing wins it's kind of led to it in Norway and other places.

James

So yeah thanks so much for both for taking time and yeah for all the amazing work you guys do.

Toby

Well thank you James I really enjoyed it so um yeah very good