Overview

This book critically examines how brands determine the visibility of social issues through their advertising practices, informing the ways we are persuaded to feel, think, and act as consumers and citizens. Through a critical analysis of brand responses to ongoing geopolitical events, such as the Ukrainian conflict and the war in Gaza, Scalvini demonstrates how commercial objectives drive ethical stances, leading to the prioritization of certain profit-driven narratives and the exclusion of more politicized ones. Drawing on in-depth interviews with post-Millennial consumers across North America, Europe, and Asia, Brand Activism critiques brands’ reluctance to engage with politically sensitive topics, particularly those affecting the Global South, arguing that this avoidance distorts the representation of moral responsibility in advertising. This book examines how ‘ordinary’ consumers—those not strongly aligned with activist consumption—negotiate the idea that they should take moral responsibility for their spending choices. However, it also discusses the rise of a new generation of consumer activists who reject superficial brand gestures and demand accountability for global justice. Case studies from brands such as Nike, Patagonia, Gillette, Dove, and Ben & Jerry’s are explored in detail to unpack the symbolic, rhetorical, and discursive strategies by which present brand activist campaigns are being hollowed out and re-articulated into a moral discourse. This is valuable and insightful reading for advanced students and researchers in Media and Communication, Sociology, Marketing, and Business disciplines.

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9780367616618

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Scalvini makes an important intervention in our understanding of the relationship between consumers and brands. Highlighting the complex interactions between brands, their attachments to social causes, and the expectations and responses of their consumers, he creates a crucial case for recognising brands as political actors in contemporary society. At the same time, he emphasises the vital role that ethics must then play in their actions, to avoid the selective attention and prioritisation of causes and groups that perpetuates existing hierarchies. Consumers play a vital role in holding brands to account, and the book also reminds us that in an age of empowered consumers, the market is not only a place of exchange, but also a space where demands for brand accountability can no longer be ignored. - Lee Edwards, Professor, Strategic Communication and Public Engagement, Londo School of Economics In the upside-down world of fake news and the appropriation of discourses of empowerment by those who oppress, it is more crucial than ever that critical media scholars pause to consider the power that branding has or claims to have. Can advertising be a politically moral practice, or incite ethical responses to injustice? This book offers a bold analysis of these questions, thereby significantly advancing theories of both branding and media ethics. - Mehita Iqani, Author of African Luxury Branding and Garbage in Popular Culture

Author Information

Marco Scalvini is a Senior Lecturer in the Communications and Media Programme at the London College of Communication at the University of the Arts London, UK.

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