A Marketing Utopia: Why brand managers are reenvisioning the world through activism

Over the past years, brands have been more bold in speaking out on controversial socio-political issues such as race equality, same sex marriage, abortion and the refugee crisis. Sportswear brand Nike spoke out on police brutality in the United States when featuring American NFL-player Colin Kaepernick in a campaign, while ice-cream brand Ben & Jerry’s caused controversy when speaking out about white supremacy and calling for the impeachment of democratically-elected President Donald Trump. Simultaneously, academia suggests that brands are using cultural expressions to enhance relationships with stakeholders more frequently. Prior studies on this new development in marketing, called brand activism, have mainly focused on defining the characteristics of brand activism and on presenting the risks associated with this development. Consequently, studies suggest that engaging in brand activism causes significant risk for brands, including consumer alienation and boycotts. However, relatively little attention has been given to the managerial perspective on brand activism and on what motivates brands to engage in activism. Therefore, this study explored why brands choose to take a stance on controversial socio-political issues in spite of the high risks associated with it. For this purpose, an inductive content analysis driven by Constructivist Grounded Theory was conducted. Herein, brand managers and marketing experts from various brands within the consumer goods industry were interviewed in-depth, in order to comprehend their beliefs and opinions in regards to brand activism. Based on the data, this study found three core categories: building a brand through activism, reenvisioning the world through marketing and walking the talk. Specifically, the findings of this study indicated that brand activism can enhance consumeridentification and consumer-relationships, in addition to attracting and engaging with employees that have similar values to the brand. As such, the findings of this study suggested that brand activism can help brand growth and increase sales, next to engaging stakeholders. Theoretically, this thesis included the Analytics of Cultural Practice approach, where cultural mediation and marketing as a form of government were observed to be significant in relation to brand activism. In the context of this study, the findings concluded that managers held strong beliefs on socio-political issues and utilized their jobs to raise awareness amongst consumers and to educate stakeholders. Finally, this study concluded that managers believed that their brand taking a stance on controversial sociopolitical issues was the right thing to do for the world, in spite of the high risks associated with it.