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Trust in Brand Activism: A look at self-love campaigns of beauty brands

Nguyen, Ngoc LU (2022) SKOM12 20221
Department of Strategic Communication
Abstract
In recent years, brand activism has been mentioned as a new evolution in corporate sociopolitical involvement. From the customers’ perspective, they expect brands to be more vocal and take a stance to tackle challenges. They do not want neutral brands anymore. However, in the rising trend of brands becoming activists, the debates of “trustwashing” also arise. Most existing research regard of brand activism mentioned this issue but there is a gap in understanding the problem from customers’ insight. On the balance between messages and actions, what can increase the trust of customers in brand activism campaigns is still a gap to be studied. By adopting the theory of the Elaboration Likelihood Model by Petty and Cacioppo (1986) and research... (More)
In recent years, brand activism has been mentioned as a new evolution in corporate sociopolitical involvement. From the customers’ perspective, they expect brands to be more vocal and take a stance to tackle challenges. They do not want neutral brands anymore. However, in the rising trend of brands becoming activists, the debates of “trustwashing” also arise. Most existing research regard of brand activism mentioned this issue but there is a gap in understanding the problem from customers’ insight. On the balance between messages and actions, what can increase the trust of customers in brand activism campaigns is still a gap to be studied. By adopting the theory of the Elaboration Likelihood Model by Petty and Cacioppo (1986) and research on brand trust, this research conceptualises a new model with more predictors for trust in brand activism. The purpose is to investigate which factors can affect customers’ beliefs about brand activism. An online survey was conducted to ask female respondents to evaluate the self-love campaigns of two popular beauty brands: Dove and The Body Shop. Through calculating and analysing the opinions of 238 females, the research comes to a conclusion that the argument strength of brand activism messages is the most important element influencing customers’ trust with brand activism campaigns. It contributes to the brand activism literature by examining the phenomenon from a new aspect with empirical results. (Less)
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author
Nguyen, Ngoc LU
supervisor
organization
course
SKOM12 20221
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
brand activism, brand trust, activism campaign, beauty brands, controlled communication, argument strength, activism activities
language
English
id
9083867
date added to LUP
2022-06-27 14:24:28
date last changed
2022-06-27 14:24:28
@misc{9083867,
  abstract     = {{In recent years, brand activism has been mentioned as a new evolution in corporate sociopolitical involvement. From the customers’ perspective, they expect brands to be more vocal and take a stance to tackle challenges. They do not want neutral brands anymore. However, in the rising trend of brands becoming activists, the debates of “trustwashing” also arise. Most existing research regard of brand activism mentioned this issue but there is a gap in understanding the problem from customers’ insight. On the balance between messages and actions, what can increase the trust of customers in brand activism campaigns is still a gap to be studied. By adopting the theory of the Elaboration Likelihood Model by Petty and Cacioppo (1986) and research on brand trust, this research conceptualises a new model with more predictors for trust in brand activism. The purpose is to investigate which factors can affect customers’ beliefs about brand activism. An online survey was conducted to ask female respondents to evaluate the self-love campaigns of two popular beauty brands: Dove and The Body Shop. Through calculating and analysing the opinions of 238 females, the research comes to a conclusion that the argument strength of brand activism messages is the most important element influencing customers’ trust with brand activism campaigns. It contributes to the brand activism literature by examining the phenomenon from a new aspect with empirical results.}},
  author       = {{Nguyen, Ngoc}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Trust in Brand Activism: A look at self-love campaigns of beauty brands}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}