Activismul prin brand. Studiu de caz: campania eMAG din 2019
Brand activism. Case study: eMAG campaign from 2019

Summary/Abstract: The article highlights a new trend in brand behavior, especially global ones: brand activism. Brand activism involves brands taking public positions on social and political issues. They are addressed to society as a whole and not just to a commercial target. Brands take positions despite the risks they face. This type of stance emerged in the context of the crisis of legitimacy of heteronomous discourse (especially in the United States), being at the same time a defensive reaction and an opportunity for brands to occupy new discursive territories. In the first part, I presented the main features of brand activism, insisting on political activism. The second part is, in fact, a hermeneutic analysis of the discourse transmitted through the brand campaign of eMAG, especially through the advertising clip "Freedom every day" from October 2019. I showed that, in reality, this was a campaign of brand activism, overlapping with part of the 2019 presidential election campaign and trying to stimulate the #resist movement. The association of two different campaigns (brand campaign and brand activism campaign) as well as the inconsistent mix of communicated values, especially through the advertising clip, but also through the entire campaign, made the reception to be predominantly negative. Finally, the brand activism cannot reached its target.

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