Grateful and elevated or angry and contemptuous? The role of moral emotions in consumer responses to brand activism

Consumers increasingly call brands to drive policy changes by taking an ‘activist’ stance on socio-political
issues. Although brand activism mainly uses moral emotions to prompt discussions and change, research has
largely neglected to analyze the role of moral emotions. Building on Haidt’s moral emotion framework, this
research analyzes how consumers’ elicited moral emotions and their personal involvement with a societal
cause affect consumer responses towards activist brands. In an experiment with two current controversial
issues, we measured people’s agreement with the brand’s stand and its impact on moral emotions and
subsequent attitudinal reactions. Respondents’ (dis-) agreement with the brand’s stance led to more
(negative) positive responses, mediated by negative vs. positive moral emotions, respectively. A higher
personal involvement with the issue increased this effect. Implications for theory and brand managers are
derived.