Consumer Response to Brand Activism: A Multiple Case Study Analysis

The purpose of this study is to explore the consumer response to Brand Activism, a new phenomenon defined as an emerging marketing strategy. We selected four activism campaigns of well-known brands and we conducted a sentiment analysis of users' comments posted on the Brands' Instagram profiles. The analysis generated very different findings for each case, showing that some forms of Brand Activism are perceived as authentic by consumers, therefore they are shared and supported by them; contrarily others are perceived as inauthentic, as result the consumer response is extremely negative.