Speak up or stay quiet

Abstract: Purpose and aim – The increased polarization in society results in the fact that companies are increasingly being called upon by consumers to take a stance on controversial socio-political issues. This contemporary phenomenon is defined as CEO/brand activism, and it is particularly prevalent in the United States. The purpose of this research is to analyze the influence of CEO/brand activism on building brand equity and the purchase intent in Sweden, through the level of agreement regarding Ben & Jerry’s stance on keeping nine thousand young refugees in Sweden. Moreover, our research provides a comparative analysis where the influence on purchase intent as well as the general perception of Swedish consumers on CEO/brand activism will be analyzed and compared to existent research prevalent in the United States to provide an international perspective and understanding of the concept. Methods and procedures – A quantitative study is used to analyze the gathered results from our web-based questionnaire. A one-way ANOVA test was used to determine if mean differences exist between the treatment groups of agreement and disagreement to the activist stance for our 115 data sets. Respondents were divided into two different treatment groups based on their support toward Ben & Jerry’s refugee stance in Sweden. Moreover, to analyze the relationship between overall brand equity and purchase intent, the Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used. Results – The results showed that agreeing to the stance leads to a significant increase in all brand equity’ dimensions except for brand community. Alternatively, disagreement to the stance does not lead to an increase for all brand equity’ dimensions. In addition, brand equity and purchase intent are highly correlated, indicating that agreeing to the stance leads to higher overall purchase intent. Our findings further suggest that the Swedish consumer expressed a more positive attitude to brand activism compared to the United States, indicating that Swedes are in general more acceptive toward CEOs and brands taking a stance on socio-political issues. Implications – This study is the first in analyzing the influence of CEO/brand activism on brand equity and purchase intent. Moreover, it contributed to the field of comparative CSR by comparing our results to existent research in the United States. The findings of this thesis are particularly interesting both from a theoretical and managerial point of view. Hence, this thesis serves as a door-opener for future research in terms of comparative CSR, CSM, socio-political activism, and institutionalism.