Two months ago, visitors to the website of the Oregon-based US sports gear giant Nike found themselves being diverted to a site run by activists plotting to shut down the September 2000 World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting scheduled for Australia. This 'jam'-the work of a still-unidentified hacker-lasted 19 hours.

The incident opens a window onto the chaotic and unpredictable world of the New Economy's new activism. Conflicts between corporations and activists, once played out in the streets and at the cash register, are now also pursued in cyberspace. To a significant degree, this is to the advantage of NGOs because the Internet facilitates low-cost, guerrilla-like gambits of the sort that hobbled Nike.

Activists working the Net-mines range from lone hackers to mainstream protest Organisations such as Greenpeace to 'dis-organisations' like the Direct Action Network-which used e-mail and cell phones to orchestrate last December's siege of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle.

The WTO's Seattle debacle and a continuing stream of anti-globalisation protest activity this year-aimed at summits like the G-8 and the WEF-are examples of "netwar," a term coined four years ago by the RAND Corporation, a US military-funded think tank. It refers to information-based conflicts at a societal level, which can spill out of cyberspace and the airwaves and onto the streets.

Perhaps the most colorful weapon in this new Internet age of activism is so-called "culture jamming," a prankish but potent product of modern counterculture: Activists with an ax to grind attack corporations by ridiculing cherished trademarks and subverting public messages. It's been used periodically in the past-like Greenpeace UK's 199X spat with supermarket chain Tesco to protest its use of CFC-based refrigerants. In carparks around the country, shoppers were welcomed by campaign vans bearing the Tesco logo-only the 'Te' had been replaced with 'Fia'-for Fiasco.

But with the Internet, culture jamming is coming into its own. A spectacular example has been played out over the past few months. The background to this case was conflict between Greenpeace and the Atlanta-based US beverage giant The Coca-Cola Company, over the issue of greenhouse-unfriendly refrigeration at this year's Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics-the so-called "Green Games."

The Greenpeace campaign constituted a classic example of the 'carrot and big stick' approach to anti-corporate campaigning (see box).

First came the big stick. In May, Greenpeace released its biting Green Olympics, Dirty Sponsors report, both in a hard copy mail-out and over the Internet. It targeted Coca-Cola and another big corporate name, McDonalds, over the use in Sydney of thousands of refrigeration units containing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a potent greenhouse gas. The campaign called on the companies to commit to non-HFC 'Greenfreeze' technology developed in Europe with Greenpeace input, using non-polluting hydrocarbons.

Coca-Cola's typically bland corporate website at www.thecocacolacompany.com  was no match for the provocative www.cokespotlight.org  tit-for-tat that sprang up, co-created by Greenpeace Australia and the Vancouver, Canada-based Adbusters Media Foundation, a publishing enterprise at the epicenter of the culture-jamming movement. The website features a mock advertisement where the polar bears Coke uses as a marketing image wander through a boulder-strewn, snowless landscape-or perch on a shrinking iceberg-under the banner: Enjoy Climate Change.

One month later, on June 28, Greenpeace delivered the carrot, claiming victory. It congratulated Coca-Cola for announcing a dramatic change to its global refrigeration policy in time for the Athens Olympics in 2004. Coca-Cola's press release, issued the same day, made no mention of Greenpeace, but behind-the-scenes negotiations had included face-to-face discussions in Switzerland between its new CEO, Doug Daft and senior Greenpeace representatives.

Greenpeace's online protest armoury included still more weapons, including do-it-yourself campaign kits ready to download from the Internet. But the speed and scale of Coca-Cola's response, according to Greenpeace insiders, took the campaign organisers by surprise. While it was too late to do much in Sydney, Coca-Cola is requiring its suppliers of millions of refrigerator units around the world to: 1) announce specific time schedules to use only HFC-free foam insulation and refrigeration in all new cold drink equipment by 2004; and 2) develop by decade's end new equipment that is 40-50 percent more energy-efficient than current models.

For Lord Peter Melchett, Greenpeace's boss in the UK and one of its leading strategists for market campaigning, this was a competition between two global brand names.

"The [Greenpeace] brand is powerful because people believe in it and trust it," says Melchett, who was a UK Labour Party Minister in the 1970s. "Our power depends on people supporting us. Self-evidently, we only exist because people give us money … A company like Coke should behave responsibly towards the environment. They weren't and that is what gives us … power [relative to them]."

A key factor that makes culture-jamming so effective is its appeal to the traditional mass media. Culture-jamming can be tackily tabloid-and clever enough to snare quality media interest as well. In fact, the media does it itself, with headline writers delighting in caustic wordplay. An example is the celebrated "McLibel" case in London-which ran from 1990 to 1997-in which McDonalds inflicted a PR ordeal on itself by successfully suing for libel two poorly funded activists who had allegedly defamed its products and processes. The term McLibel-a predictable play on a globally famous brand name-was a headline writer's dream.

The Coca-Cola case highlights how the rise of the Internet, combined with NGOs' increasing capacity to compete with multinational corporations on the brand-name level, is delivering new power to civil society in general and to activists in particular.

Coca-Cola was particularly vulnerable, given that its strategy to maintain control over about 18 percent of the world's commercial beverage market-and ideally increase that share-revolves around the Coca-Cola brand name itself. As a major sponsor of the Green Games, if portrayed as hypocritical Coke faced a potential PR hurdle that would have put Sydney's 100-meterists to shame.

But Coke's troubles in 2000 didn't start or end with Greenpeace. It had a terrible 1999. Nearly a fifth of its staff is being laid off amid controversy over a racial discrimination lawsuit being taken by aggrieved black staff and also over a big pay-out to a departing CEO. There has been a badly managed contamination scare in Europe and its share price has been in the doldrums.

The Internet has been awash with information about these woes-showing how hard it is to hide poor performance, alleged bad behavior and general vulnerability in a wired world. In a move that was widely interpreted by the US media as responding to the discrimination claims, Coca-Cola recently announced a five-year, $1bn program to develop its relationships with businesses run by minority groups and women.

The point is that, like many successful entrepreneurs, activists and other pressure groups are highly opportunistic. Here too, the new knowledge economy favors them. In dollar terms, the competition between multinational corporations and activist Organisations is no contest at all. But creativity and cheap Internet technology mean that NGOs are punching well above their weight. They undoubtedly wield power, so an important question is, do they do so responsibly? And a key issue, in this regard, is whether NGOs use their power to reward and encourage good corporate behavior, as well as attacking alleged transgressors.

Partly in response to NGOs' growing capacity to assert themselves as unofficial global regulators, more and more companies are embracing sustainability-based business strategies as a way to drive growth, increase shareholder value and protect and enhance corporate and brand image. Many have been lauded for this. But going out on a limb in turn creates a challenge. There's a perception in business circles that "sticking your head above the parapet" invites grief, because NGOs habitually attack leaders rather than 'less visible' sector laggards. BP Amoco and Canadian energy company Suncor, for example, both hailed as fossil-fuel industry leaders on climate change action, have been perplexed to find Greenpeace persistently hounding them rather than the openly less proactive Exxon Mobil.

On the record, Greenpeace campaigners take a hard line with BP Amoco over oil plans for the Arctic and an Alaskan wildlife refuge. They have targeted Suncor over oil sands mining in Alberta, Canada and oil shale mining near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Off the record, however, some admit there is intense internal debate over whether such companies should be hammered for their imperfections, or praised for their positive moves.

Lord Melchett-who was instrumental in the potent Greenpeace campaign against genetically-modified (GM) foods which devastated the Monsanto brand name-warns that companies who believe "keeping your head down" is a safer option are kidding themselves. "It's highly misleading. It implies that those who don't put their heads up are safe from public opinion. It's just a myth for ignorant business people, a short-termist view."

He remains coy, however, about the power of NGOs within the global market, insisting that their perceived rise "is a rather over-hyped situation." He also strongly asserts their accountability, for the same reasons that business is constrained by community expectations. "An NGO cannot work if there are dissonances between its activities and its brand, any more than a company can," he says.

For this reason, Greenpeace is unlikely ever to offer strong support to corporations that are locked into industries the NGO regards as inherently unsustainable, such as fossil fuels, old-growth forest logging and much fishing. A BP Amoco or a Suncor can never expect the level of praise that might be bestowed on companies with more immediate sustainability prospects, like current Greenpeace favorites Swedish furniture chain Ikea and the UK's Iceland, a frozen foods retailer.

Iceland is perhaps as close as Greenpeace has ever come to openly endorsing an entire business. It has grown from nothing in the 1970s to nearly 800 stores in Britain and Ireland-and a new on-line shopping network-selling mainly frozen foods and environmentally-friendly freezers and refrigerators.

The chain has played heavily to big Greenpeace agenda items, such as climate change and genetically modified (GM) foods. It was the first player to ban GM crops in own-brand products and is now making a big push for organic foods under its "Food you can trust" trademark. Climate change initiatives include an HFC-free refrigerator and freezer line called Kyoto-a hint of business playing at culture jamming-and a refusal to stock any brands containing HFCs.

Iceland has successfully adopted consumer concern and NGO activity on these issues as its market niche and brand identity. This fits the forecast by Amory Lovins, director of the Rocky Mountain Institute and co-author of the best-selling book Natural Capitalism, of what successful companies of the future will look like. According to Lovins, they should "...take their values from customers, their designs from nature and their discipline from the marketplace."

The growing number of global corporations now setting their sights on sustainability supports the Lovins view. Sustainability-based strategising helps corporations to identify what the community's values are, to incorporate relevant issues into their business plans-and to extract value by doing so.

The new power of NGOs in the New Economy revolves around their Internet-enhanced capacity to ring society's alarm bells when corporations and governments are in conflict with perceived community values. A classic example is the anti-GM food campaign, the greatest consumer controversy of a generation. Corporations in every sector are in the firing line of this new activism and, the bigger the brand, the more vulnerable they can be.

Shell-which Greenpeace savaged at the petrol pumps over the Brent Spar controversy in 1995-is trying to reposition itself as a sustainability leader. This year Coca-Cola weighed its options and moved fast to appease Greenpeace on HFCs. Monsanto lost its 1999 image battle with Greenpeace over GM food and has now been merged and submerged in a new brand, Pharmacia. The Iceland brand, by contrast, is winning in the shops and online by embracing Greenpeace values.

It is not just Greenpeace and other major NGO brands that have to be confronted. The Internet hosts many almost unknown groups-with names like The Ruckus Society and Genetix Snowball-all trying to build new brand names. Their niche is a call to action against global corporations.

Cautions one senior Greenpeace figure: "If corporations believe that Greenpeace is all they have to worry about, they haven't got their radar switched on … Look at the websites regarding Seattle. People are asking, 'What are the benefits of globalisation? What are the transnational corporations bringing us?'"

The message seems clear. At a minimum, corporations have to know what the community's values are on environmental and social issues. They also have to factor them into their business plans, or prepare for the likely consequences of choosing not to.

Those that can emulate an Iceland may gain first-mover advantage by going onto the front foot. Those that are out of step, or vulnerable to allegations of hypocrisy, must adjust rapidly like Coca-Cola. The Monsanto ordeal in Europe showed that dollar-might will not win out over Internet-savvy NGOs if corporations misjudge the community. Nor should corporations necessarily expect to win out over NGOs in a battle of brand-images.

Most activist tactics have been boosted by the Internet, which provides big communications power cheaply. Creative approaches like 'culture jamming' can strike at the heart of corporate and brand image. Here is the modern protest menu, and a selection of possible responses:

1. Carrot and big stick-Expect an all-out attack in the streets, at the cash register and in cyberspace, using a variety of protest styles ranging from the opportunistic to the sophisticated. Expect the attackers to know your corporation's weak spots.
2. Response-The pain will stop and the target will be congratulated if it surrenders and meets all or most of the demands. Decide if you are confident of winning with the community, or adjust practices quickly; as in Greenpeace versus Coca-Cola.
3. Direct action-Traditional, organised groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth use non-violent direct action as part of a suite of tactics, while some more anarchistic groups use it exclusively (and may get violent).
4. Response-Calm and measured responses to direct action attacks may swing public sympathy, especially if the activists' cause or methods don't match community values. Avoid overkill; such as the massive police mobilisation in Seattle.
5. Plugging the market-This is the successor of the 'plugging the pipes' approach to polluters. The aim is to undermine the credibility of a company or industry sector by targeting ethically-minded investors, nervous financiers and influential market analysts.
6. Response-Counter the increasingly sophisticated public relations, legal and financial tactics being deployed against your company, but recognise that your credibility really is on trial and that 'spin' will fail against a substantive attack.
7. Partnering and advocacy-Promotes cooperative solutions with multiple players, possibly including business players, governments and NGOs and invites public endorsements from high-profile figures such as CEOs.
8. Response-Assess the nature of your core business and the potential for creating brand value out of aligning it with green groups or other NGOs-like UK frozen food retailer Iceland did. Remember that leading can be risky, especially if you cannot deliver on rhetoric.
9. Grassroots-Can develop a groundswell of community awareness/opposition over time, or tap into existing widespread outrage. The Internet allows larger NGOs to inexpensively distribute tactical and policy information to many small players.
10. Response: This hard-to-counter guerilla-style strategy is being used to undermine GM foods in the US. Agribusiness players are seeking to counter it with a $50m public awareness campaign, but a big-battalion, old-style PR approach may fail. Better to get 'connected' with community values and stakeholder expectations.