Does fortune favor the brave? Brand bravery’s impact on green- and inclusive marketing

Abstract

The study provides new insights by investigating the influence of brand bravery on marketing communication effectiveness in two bravery contexts: environmental sustainability and inclusivity communications, in an emerging market, South Africa. Structural equation modeling tested the conceptual models based on 364 and 471 responses. Brand bravery significantly influenced brand- and advertisement attitudes in the sustainability context, but only advertisement attitudes in the inclusivity context. Interestingly, lower consumer-brand identification had a stronger moderation effect than higher values. This was true for the relationship between bravery and brand attitude for both contexts; yet, only for sustainability communication did the same occur for the relationship between bravery and advertisement attitude. The main contributions are insights into how consumers see a brand’s bravery from green marketing and inclusivity perspectives and the effectiveness of these communications from an understudied geographical viewpoint. It also highlights the moderating role of consumer-brand identification in the consumer-brand relational framework.