Preventing Brand Activism From Backfiring: How the Use of an Ingroup Model Can Limit the Negative Effects of One-Time CSR History

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Brands are beginning to engage in corporate social advocacy (CSA) with social movements to form deeper connections with their audience, but not all are successful. This thesis asks why a brand’s target audience considers some CSA campaigns as more authentic than others. In Study I, I use Twitter data to conduct an exploratory analysis that applies existing research to two extreme CSA cases: Nike’s Emmy-winning “Dream Crazy” campaign starring Colin Kaepernick and Pepsi’s unsuccessful “Live for Now– Moments” campaign starring Kendall Jenner. Pepsi failed despite its history of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. I suggest that group identity theory impacts audience perception. A white celebrity main model for Pepsi’s CSA campaign may have alienated supporters by ignoring the Black Lives Matter movements’ ingroup, the Black community. Study II determines how a brand’s CSR history and campaign model’s group identity impact its audience’s perception. I conduct a representative online survey of 500 American adults analyze the data in a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test. The independent variables are the brand’s CSR commitment (continuous or one-time) and the campaign’s main model group identity (ingroup or outgroup). The dependent variable is the audience’s perceived authenticity measured as brand values, brand personality, and brand intent scales. I find main effects from CSR commitment and group identity on all three scales. Interaction effects show that using an ingroup model limits the negative effects of a less-extensive CSR history. In summary, brand engagement in continuous CSR initiatives yields the most authentic audience perception, but brands just beginning to engage in CSA without a continuous history of CSR can use a social movement ingroup model to increase the campaign’s perceived authenticity.