It depends on the protest. You can't just do a random thing and expect people to get inspired. Gluing yourself to something makes you look foolish. Not inspiring. Blocking traffic is actually related to the problem, so it can start a spark.

Some of the best environmentist protestors are the ones who chain themselves to trees to stop old growth logging. These are excellent and passionate protests.

The glue and paintings nonsense works against this. It's stupid and distracting and discouraging.