Fueling or Suppressing Brand Activism Backlash: How Message Type Differentially Influences Perceived Hypocrisy and Consumer Attitudes
研究品牌在行动主义广告引发消费者反弹后，不同撤回信息策略（如撤回、责任、重申、不回应）如何影响消费者感知虚伪和态度，发现撤回策略会加剧支持者的虚伪感，但可通过安全诉求缓解。
Brand activism, a common form of purpose advertising, often incites consumer backlash. Many brands respond by retracting their positions to suppress the negative wave, and this research investigates the effectiveness of the retraction message strategy. Adapting crisis communication literature to this context, this research develops an Accommodative-Defensive message-type framework and compares retraction to three other message types: responsibility, reaffirmation, and no-response. Three experimental studies using real-world brands reveal that retraction generates higher perceived hypocrisy among those who support the original issue position (high levels of issue support). Interestingly, message type does not appear to affect perceived hypocrisy for individuals with low levels of issue support. Brands can mitigate the adverse response to retraction with a lower-level basic need appeal (safety justification). Among other contributions, this research reveals new insight into the interaction between message type and issue support, shows how brand activism backlash necessitates novel communication strategies, and retraction fuels the negative wave, moving the brand closer to a veritable crisis.