Activist Brands: Exploring the Boundaries of Controversy

2. Literature Review

Vredenburg et al. (2020) proposed a definition for brand activism that differentiates it from Cause Marketing, Corporate Social Marketing, and Advocacy Advertising - similar and earlier versions of classification for brands addressing societal issues – specifically because in Brand Activism, brands choose to take a stand and speak up their brand voices on controversial topics (such as racism, gender equality, LGBTQIA+, among others), generating a mix of different reactions amongst consumers (Mukherjee & Althuizen, 2020). In the framework proposed by Vredenburg et al. (2020), consumers' responses may vary from delight to outrage, depending on how these values are intertwined.

Looking deeper into this definition, we see two points that need further exploration to be better understood in marketing literature. One is the definition of controversial and how scholars can address this concept when analyzing and discussing brand activism (Aaker et al. (2004). The second point to address is if there is a way to measure – or at least consider – different levels of controversy (Mukherjee & Althuizen, 2020). Topics may be too much or too little controversial, and these differences may lead to different outcomes for brands that take a stand related to these matters (Vredenburg et al, 2020).