Purpose Project

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  Conference Proceedings: The Purpose Challenge: Bridging the Gap Between Industry and Academia to Achieve Social Impact Goals

  American Academy of Advertising

  Key themes emerged focusing on the different issues addressed under the PURPOSE umbrella, how advertising agencies differ from corporate in purpose-driven marketing initiatives, and how academia can be a resource for professionals on this topic. The UT Purpose Project was discussed as a potential outlet for purpose research. From the conversations about academic purpose-oriented studies, industry professionals saw value in the potential insights derived from academic work. Cultural differences between industry and academic were discussed such as the industry’s need for speedy decisions and academician slower pace in producing quality research. Professionals felt they needed the potential insights from academic work to help justify decisions in a more objective way to their teams, executives and clients. However, it was acknowledged by both profession and industry professionals that the way academic articles are written hinders communication between academics and industry. As a solution, professional panelists noted their desire for current, relevant, white-paper type research being available for public consumption. The academic researchers desired conversations with industry professionals about purpose questions that would be relevant to industry as a way to make research more useful.

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  Citizen brand: The emergence of brandstanding as organizational engagement and civic duty

  Luke Capizzo and Jeannette Iannaconne

  The concept of brandstanding has been embraced by leading public relations firms and practitioners, but is virtually absent from scholarship. This conceptual essay defines brandstanding as an organization (corporation, nonprofit, or government agency) taking a public stance on a contentious issue (generally, outside of its industry or core purpose) while articulating its corresponding values and maintaining authenticity. It further describes the phenomenon in four components: (1) organizational and stakeholder values, (2) authenticity, (3) engagement, and (4) measurement. Understanding the role of each can help PR practitioners guide organizations toward informed participation in civic discourse. While some have encouraged an approach that minimizes contention (i.e. Argenti, 2020), this essay uses moral decoupling theory to argue that reducing the distance between what they say and how they act (Dowell & Jackson, 2020; Weiner, 2021) and striving for authenticity—the continuity, credibility, integrity, and symbolism of an organization’s stance (Morhart et al., 2015)—should be the most crucial factors in engagement decisions

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  Exploring Anti-Asian Racism Activism on Twitter during the Early Era of COVID-19 Hate Crimes: Implications for Marketers’ Social Purpose Communication Strategy

  Yoon-Joo Lee, Eric Haley, and Yuanyuan Shang

  This study attempts to fill the void in the understanding of anti-Asian racism social media activism campaigns during the early era of the COVID-19 pandemic through content analysis and network analysis of social media to provide suggestions for advertisers/nonprofits to address the prevalence of racism against Asian Americans. Within the theoretical framework of expectancy theory and the field of racial positions, this study reveals that in responses to anti-Asian racism, messages reflecting model minority stereotypes were predominant in conversations across the board but especially predominant among Asian Americans. Network analysis with exponential random graph models (ERGMs) demonstrated that other race groups are more likely to unite in interacting around the topic than Asian Americans. Based on these findings, purpose advertising campaign strategy insights and implications are proposed.

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  Purpose Advertising And the Credibility Gap

  Tyler Milfeld and Eric Haley

  One approach to purpose advertising is brand activism—taking a stand on a sociopolitical issue. This research compares divergent perspectives on whether and how brand activism influences brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Results from three studies, in which real-world brands and messages were used, identify a credibility gap between brands with a reputation for activism (established activist brands) and those without a reputation (emergent activist brands). Findings also reveal how personal issue knowledge moderates the credibility gap. Among other contributions, this research creates a new brand typology in the brand activism arena and empirically demonstrates a more favorable effect for established (versus emergent) activist brands when taking a stand.

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  Why a Single Pro-Environmental Appeal Works to Promote Behavioral Change On Social Media, One Tip versus Many Is More Effective for Nongreen Consumers

  Matthew Pittman, Tyler Milfeld, and Kibum Youn

  Some brands, not-for-profit organizations, and social media influencers post tips to encourage prosocial behaviors. This is particularly prevalent in the context of environmental sustainability. Through a series of three studies, including a field experiment using a real brand to investigate click-through rates and cost per click, this research finds that a single green tip (versus many tips) enhances brand attitudes among consumers with low environmental concern. By contrast, the number of tips is less consequential for consumers with high environmental concern. Perceived brand authenticity is the mediating mechanism behind the effect. These findings hold across different product categories and different manipulations for the number of tips.

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  Issue contention and consumers’ reactions to corporate social responsibility: Challenging the dyadic assumptions

  Sifan Xu and Moonhee Cho

  Two experiments (one fictitious on environmental CSR and one real-life on a company’s social advocacy on gun violence) were conducted to examine how issue contention affects consumers’ reactions to corporate social re- sponsibility (CSR). Results of the two experiments suggest that while issue contention does not lower consumers’ agency, it makes consumers less likely to engage the organization based on their values and beliefs (i.e., symbolic avoidance) regardless of the organization’s viewpoints. The results also suggest that this effect does not directly extend to actual purchase intention, which indicates that actual purchase intention is confounded by both symbolic interactions and tangible factors such as price and corporate expertise. Results of the two experiments provide important implications for public relations research, challenging the dyadic assumptions of organization- public interactions and relationships and calling for further attention on inter-publics and inter-organizations dynamics

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  Green consumer segmentation: consumer motivations for purchasing pro-environmental products

  Jinhee Lee and Eric Haley

  The purpose of this study is to segment US green consumers based on their personal, social, and environmental motivations for purchasing pro-environmental products. By using two-step cluster analysis, this study revealed six green consumer segments, each with a distinct combination of motivations. The different segments display a wide range of demographic characteristics, knowledge of pro-environmental products, pro-environmental product use behavior, skepticism, and attitudes toward pro-environmental advertising. This study found that green consumers, who have strong environmental motivations, have high knowledge about pro-environmental products, use a higher number and more varied selection of such products, tend to have less skepticism toward pro-environmental advertising, and have more positive attitudes toward such advertising. The study expands the motivations used in green consumer segmentation, delivering a more detailed analysis of the drivers of green consumer behavior. It also helps to explain the contradictions in the literature as to whether or not green consumers are open to or skeptical of green advertising.

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  How Pro-Social Purpose Agencies Define Themselves and Their Value: An Emerging Business Model in the Advertising- Agency World

  Samantha LaVoi and Eric Haley

  Organizations across sectors are collaborating on social initiatives, taking political action, and using media platforms to speak out on a range of social issues. This study deals with the emerging phenomena of purpose-driven and social-impact communications from an agency stand- point. This study employs inductive analysis to understand how such agencies define themselves, their value, and how agency process reflects their definitions. Twelve advertising professionals holding senior leadership positions within agencies specializing in purpose-driven and social-impact communications were interviewed to gain insights. These professionals feel they are a part of an emerging “fourth sector” within the advertising/communications agency landscape. The study’s key insights hold prominent theoretical and practical implications for advertising literature, illustrating how changes external to advertising necessitate new paradigms in advertising agencies related to such things as communication goals and content, agency structure, and staffing.

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  A Fresh Start for Stigmatized Groups: The Effect of Cultural Identity Mindset Framing in Brand Advertising

  Tyler Milfeld, Eric Haley, and Daniel Flint

  The idea that individuals can create a new beginning, known as the fresh start mindset, is deeply embedded in American culture. This mindset represents an accessible, shared construct that may be particularly relevant for changing attitudes toward two highly stigmatized groups: ex-offenders and drug addicts. While previous advertising literature has suggested that ambiguous or symbolic approaches may help improve consumer response, we show (using four studies) that cultural identity mindset framing (CIMF) can generate more positive affect toward the sponsoring brand and more positive attitudes toward the stigmatized group. Study 1 shows that explicitly referencing a highly stigmatized group leads to a less positive affective response toward the brand. Study 2 reveals that CIMF improves that response. Study 3 uses a real brand to replicate the positive affect toward the sponsoring brand. Study 4 documents a positive attitude shift toward the stigmatized group. Our research opens a new research corridor for explicitly referencing a stigmatized group, expands the stigmatized group discourse to two underrepresented groups, provides empirical evidence for the fresh start message frame, and answers a call to understand whether corporate social responsibility advertising is better than not advertising it at all.

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  Apps4Africa: A new State Department public diplomacy initiative

  Lacey Milam and Elizabeth Johnson Avery

  In 2010 the U.S. State Department funded an “Apps4Africa” contest to encourage develop- ment of socially conscious mobile applications for Africa. The initiative marked a significant departure from traditional public diplomacy efforts to expand diplomatic outreach beyond traditional government-to-government relationships. This case study analyses Apps4Africa to reveal its appropriateness as a model for future efforts and concludes Apps4Africa suc- ceeded primarily because it responded to the changing dynamics of the 21st Century