Brands as Politicians - How Consumers Morally Judge Advocacy Advertising

Sammanfattning: Purpose: The purpose of this research was to understand how consumers morally judge advocacy advertising in contemporary consumer culture. The phenomenon was explored with the help of three case studies, namely Nike, Gillette, and Pepsi, all being brands who have taken a political stance in their advertisement campaigns. Theoretical Perspective: To analyse the empirical material, we first delved into the concept of moral identity, partly referring to the social identity in connection to advertisements. Subsequently, we thoroughly delineated concepts on morality, including moral judgments, the cynicism of morality, and moral authenticity. Thereafter, we discussed the existing model of how consumers perceive advocacy advertising. Methodology: The present study was conducted in terms of the social constructionist and interpretivist worldview. By using an inductive approach, we designed a two-sequenced qualitative research, beginning with virtual observations and followed by three focus groups. The derived findings were analysed based on the narrative technique, enabling us to explore the phenomenon from a multi-sided perspective and revealing the role underlying circumstances play for consumers morally judging advocacy advertisements. Empirical Findings: The collected empirical material supported the notion that consumers morally judge advocacy advertising. When forming judgments, consumers rely on their moral beliefs, moral enlightenment, and moral feelings, which are underlying elements of the moral identity. Further, consumers judge the alignment of the brand and issue in advocacy advertising based upon evaluation criteria, involving the (1) brand’s moral motives, (2) brand’s moral responsibility, (3) brand’s moral image, (4) brand’s moral choice of the spokesperson and (5) moral brand parodies. Conclusion: The present study provides essential insights, including a practical framework, brands can use to handle the paradox of solving political issues through their branding strategies. The paper thereby demonstrates how consumers morally judge brands taking a political stance in their advertisements, further providing an in-depth understanding of how advocacy