What do Patagonia, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Gillette and Nike have in common? Within the past decade, each of these companies has taken a public stance on a controversial social issue, a public relations initiative known as corporate social advocacy (CSA). Consider, for instance, Nike’s ads featuring Colin Kaepernick that address social justice, and Gillette’s videos about toxic masculinity in response to the #MeToo movement.
Brand values are an important factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions, but companies still face the challenge of properly communicating their values. One of the most notable instances of poor CSA communication is Pepsi’s 2017 ad that referenced the racial justice movement and was deemed the Fail of the Year.
So how can brands communicate about their values in a way that positively impacts both the brand and the social issue? And if several social issues are important to the brand, how can they choose which one to publicly support? To address these questions, my colleagues and I conducted an experiment which tested three features of a CSA message: emotional tone (positive vs. negative), emotional intensity (calm vs. intense), and issue salience (low vs. high). We wanted to know how these three aspects of CSA communication can impact both company-related outcomes and advocacy behavior.
