Monkey Business

Every week one of the Lizard’s colleagues (his name is Yasir – by the way) collates an Incident Database so we can all keep tabs on the fresh crises and calamities that are besetting the world and keeping us in business.

Now Yasir is a military type and doesn’t use two words when one will do. This is what he had to say:

50 Greenpeace protesters accessed two Unilever plants in London, in protest at the company’s use of Palm Oil, which is claimed to damage the Indonesian Rainforest. The protesters left the site after 9 hours of talks with site managers.

Clear, concise and to the point – the only thing Yasir didn’t mention was that all the protestors were dressed as Orangutans.

They swung into action and made a monkey out of Unilever.

The protests were videoed by Greenpeace who were only too delighted to hand over the footage to the press. So that evening we were treated to a lot of monkey business on the news.

Crises come in many shapes and forms, but if one of the big environmental pressure groups come after you, then you really are in trouble.

The Lizard ran a media course last year. Delegates came form right across Europe from many different companies and organisations.

One of them is the head of press for WWF (no, not the World Wrestling Federation).

During proceedings the Lizard was banging on about how important it is to control press conferences and not let anyone in who might disrupt proceedings.

One way of doing this is to check the journalists’ press credentials. At which point the gentleman from the World Wildlife Fund said well I used to be a journo and I like to keep an up to date press card and here it is.

Another of their tactics is to buy a few shares in a company they want to target thus allowing them to wreak havoc during the AGM.

It’s enough to make you go ape.