Brand activism, does it work? : A quantitative study on how advertising that contains elements of social activism affects consumer-based brand equity and how it in turn affects consumer purchasing engagement

Sammanfattning: Date: 3 June Level: Master Thesis in Business Administration, 15 credits Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University Authors: Paul Kato (95/03/11) and Henrik Aronsson (95/10/29) Title: Brand Activism, does it work? Tutor: Edward Gillmore Keywords: Brand activism, brand equity, social activism, attitudes, woke washing Research questions: a. How is the consumer-based brand equity affected by a company’s use of social activism in its marketing? b. How does this in turn affect consumer purchasing engagement? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how consumers respond tosocial activism advertisements and how it influences their purchaseengagement. Method: The method used in this thesis is a quantitative research with anabductive research approach. The data has been collected through anonline survey and received 504 responses. Conclusion: Advertising that contains social activism has an overly positive impact onconsumer attitudes, purchasing engagement, and corporate consumerbasedbrand equity.