Does Retailer Activism Increase Consumers’ Perception of Private Label Brand Equity?

Abstract

Consumers increasingly demand that brands take public stance on controversial and polarized issues. Assuming the perspective of marketing practitioners, brand activism is considered a relevant strategy to satisfy a request of this type. In the branding literature, activism has been prevalently investigated with regards to national brands (NBs). This research explores the world of private label (PL) brands. Particularly, it raises questions on whether consumers’ perception of PL brand equity could benefit from retailer activism. To this end, an explorative experiment is conducted. The experiment evaluates the presence (vs. absence) of activism attributes in three contexts: NB vs. premium PL brands vs. economy PL brands. These findings suggest that in the “activism attributes: present” condition participants indicated higher perceived brand equity for the premium PL brand. In the “activism attributes: absent” condition NBs were evaluated higher.