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In brand activism, a brand promotes contested sociopolitical causes to highlight its values. Brand activism also alienates those consumers who disagree with the cause, who might, consequently, target the brand with critical, negative or even aggressive actions. This paper aims to study the triggers and strategies of consumers’ antibrand actions given in response to brand activism.

Qualitative content analysis and multiple correspondence analysis were used to study consumer responses directed at a chocolate brand’s campaign that advocated civilized online conversions and opposed hate speech, a politically heated topic. In total, 1,615 messages were collected from social media platforms.

Field infringement, political accusations and questioned impact of the campaign triggered consumers to turn against the campaign. Strategies to undermine it included boycotting, discrediting the brand and trapping. Trapping – creatively using technological affordances to create harm to the brand – was typically triggered by political associations.

Findings relate to the critical responses regarding one campaign only.

By understanding the political discussion around the chosen cause, including the opponents’ typical triggers and strategies, brand activism can more credibly advocate for contested social causes and communicate brand values.

Political antibrand actions are distinct from the previously identified functional and ethical antibrand actions, and they are noninstrumental by nature. Practices that are native to social media are central to political antibrand actions, and social media platforms contribute to how such disappointment is articulated and acted upon.

This paper aims to shed light on the emerging position of companies taking stances on sociopolitical issues and the impact this has on consumers.

The paper uses focus groups, interviews and consumer experiments in various countries, to provide insights as to why brands are taking sociopolitical stances.

Consumers expect brands to take a stance on sociopolitical issues. However, to be credible, a stance needs to be rooted in a long-term commitment that aligns with the brand’s strategy and values. Perceived authenticity is key.

Future studies should aim at broader generalizability and should address various industries.

Differentiating a brand through a sociopolitical stance requires a strategic approach. Brand managers need to identify which issues they should support, how to engage with them and the risks and opportunities involved.

While the impact of brands adopting a sociopolitical stance has been discussed in the mainstream media, there has been a lack of empirical evidence to support the arguments. The results of the four studies discussed in the paper provide insights and demonstrate the brand-related opportunities and risks of taking a sociopolitical stance.

In this study the authors aim to explore the factors that contribute to the formation of locavorism as a form of consumer ideology.

In this study, the authors adopt an inductive approach by preselecting locavore consumers and conducting 43 semi-structured interviews, following the prescriptions of narrative-enquiry research.

The authors reveal that individual-level (i.e. values, beliefs and experiences) and social-level (i.e. groups, local communities and society) influences and exogenous factors can affect the formation of locavorism. Furthermore, the authors’ findings corroborate the concept advanced by prior studies that reinforcing loops exist among the three belief dimensions of locavorism.

Food producers can use these findings to shape their marketing strategies more effectively to target locavore consumers and/or stimulate the consumption of local food.

Identifying the influences of social- and individual-level factors on the formation of locavorism can contribute to the understanding of demand shifts towards local food consumption. Additionally, by revealing the modes of thought that formulate the ideologies of locavore consumers, the authors offer guidance in the development of policies that can safeguard local economies and traditions and reduce transport pollution and food waste in favour of sustainable local consumption.

In the present article the authors explore the psychological and contextual mechanisms that contribute to the formation of locavorism.

In this paper, the authors aim to offer a cross-cultural comparison of the boycott intentions of university students in Canada with those of students in Korea.

The data were collected from students at Inje University and York University via self-administered questionnaire. A t-test found that Canadian students’ answers showed significantly greater scores in ethnocentrism, boycott attitudes prior to reading the target article and motivations related to self-enhancement compared to those acquired from Korean students. However, the motivation of counterarguments and the boycott intentions of Korean students’ toward Rogers, the parent company of Maclean’s magazine, showed significantly higher scores than those gained from Canadian students.

The boycott case used in the study is Maclean’s magazine, a Canadian news magazine, which published a controversial article called, “Too Asian? Some frosh don’t want to study at an “Asian” University”. A noticeable gap in each group of students’ boycott attitude and intentions toward Rogers, the parent company of Maclean’s magazine was found.

In the multiple regression analysis, the boycott motivation of self-enhancement was the most influential variable on boycott intentions. The boycott case examined in this paper is a practical case study of cross-national grouping as well as the perceptional difference of the locus of corporate accountability that comes from cross-cultural backgrounds.

The purpose of this study is to operationalise and measure the effects of negative customer engagement (CE) in conjunction with positive CE. Both valences are explored through affective, cognitive and behaviour dimensions, and, in relation to the antecedent of involvement and outcome of word-of-mouth (WOM). It also explores the moderating influence of service context by examining engagement within a social service versus a social networking site (SNS). Engagement with the dual focal objects of a service brand and a service community are also examined.

Structural equation modelling is used to analyse 625 survey responses.

Involvement is a strong driver of positive CE, and positive CE has a strong effect on WOM. These findings are consistent across the “brand” and “community” object, suggesting positive CE is mutually reinforced by different objects in a relationship. Positive CE is also found to operate consistently across the service types. Involvement is a moderately negative driver of negative CE, and negative CE is a positive driver of WOM. These relationships operate differently across the objects and service types. Involvement has a stronger inverse effect on negative CE for the social service, diverging from assumptions that negative CE is reflective of highly involved customers. Interestingly, negative CE has a stronger effect on WOM in the social service, highlighting the active and vocal nature of customers within this service context.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to quantitatively measure positive and negative valences of engagement concurrently, and examine the moderating effect of dual objects across contrasting service types.

This study aims to analyse the influence of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) on purchase intention; this study also examines the mediating effect of generation Y’s attitude towards the brand and the moderating effect of their attitude towards CSR.

This study tested the model with a sample of 392 generation Y consumers using Smart partial least squares (PLS)-structural equation modelling.

Brand attitude partially mediates the positive influence of perceived CSR (PCSR) on purchase intention. Gen Y’s attitude towards CSR increases the impact of PCSR on brand attitude and purchase intention.

To multiply the effects of CSR and brand attitude, retail marketing managers can develop strategies that strengthen the links between awareness, knowledge, brand affection and purchase intent by encouraging Gen Y consumers to engage with the brand’s CSR strategy.

This study advances the literature on CSR and consumer behaviour by providing an integrated view of the hierarchy of effects model and a generational cohort perspective in predicting purchase intention.

sponsabilidad social corporativa y la actitud hacia la marca en la intención de compra

el estudio analiza la influencia de la responsabilidad social corporativa (RSC) percibida sobre la intención de compra. De igual forma, se analizan el efecto mediador de la actitud hacia la marca y el efecto moderador de la actitud hacia la RSC de la Generación Y.

el modelo se contrastó con una muestra de 392 consumidores de la generación Y utilizando SMART PLS-SEM.

la actitud hacia la marca media parcialmente la influencia positiva entre la RSC percibida y la intención de compra. La actitud de la Gen Y hacia la RSC multiplica el impacto de la RSC percibida sobre la actitud hacia la marca y sobre la intención de compra.

con la finalidad de multiplicar los efectos de la RSC y de la actitud hacia la marca, los directivos del marketing minorista pueden desarrollar estrategias que refuercen los vínculos entre concienciación, conocimiento, afecto por la marca e intención de compra fomentando la implicación de los consumidores de la generación Y con la estrategia de RSC de la marca.

El estudio avanza en la literatura sobre RSC y comportamiento del consumidor al ofrecer una perspectiva integrada del modelo de jerarquía de efectos (HOE) y la perspectiva de cohortes generacionales en la predicción de la intención de compra.

本研究分析了感知到的企业社会责任对购买意向的影响。同样, 我们也分析了Y世代的品牌态度的中介效应和企业社会责任态度的调节效应。

使用SMART PLS-SEM对392名Y世代消费者的样本进行了模型测试。

品牌态度部分调解了感知的企业社会责任和购买意向之间的积极影响。Y一代对企业社会责任的态度使感知到的企业社会责任对品牌态度和购买意向的影响倍增。

为了使企业社会责任和品牌态度的效果倍增, 零售业营销人员可以制定战略, 通过鼓励Y一代消费者参与品牌的企业社会责任战略, 加强意识、知识、品牌喜爱和购买意向之间的联系。