Co‐brand partnerships making space for the next black girl: Backlash in social justice branding

Abstract

Viral influence of consumer reviews can change the strategic intent of co‐branding relationships between minority entrepreneurial startups and established corporations. When social justice positioning is involved, the intent is often to support minority businesses. We acknowledge this strategy as social justice branding. However, such alliances can trigger vitriolic responses. This backlash is an expression of free speech, and social media provides an obscure facilitative environment. The challenges of social justice branding are complex. We examine consumer online reviews of The Honey Pot and Target Corporation partnership, to understand the implications of social justice branding in practice. Using Leximancer analysis, we find that social justice branding elicits multiple emotions that empower action. Some consumers accepted the collaboration while others resisted. Analyzing the basis of the resistance revealed some consumers expressed racist and shameful behaviors displaying disagreement. Backlash reflected willful ignorance releasing pent up prejudices and disseminating viral‐like negative information as weapons of retaliation against brands and marginalized communities. We contribute a conceptual model integrating theoretical frames of social justice, social marketing, brand activism and free speech elucidating the impact of consumer response to social justice branding. The findings and model add a lens to further explore race in the marketplace.

Cooperation and Environmental Responsibility as Positive Factors for Entrepreneurial Resilience

“…In the future, Entrepreneurship Education will have to negotiate some fundamental strategic challenges, such as training new entrepreneurs to use innovative strategies based on the skilled use of technology [29,99]; promoting managerial competences [59,68,89] to consider social [25,[27][28][29][30][31]33,40,113] and environmental aspects [3,52,113]; and using electronic communication to facilitate learning [99]. EE has to adapt to different economic areas, including developing countries such as China, which is a complex and populous country with a high level of economic activity, consumption and pollution [84,95,114], but also in countries currently managing their economic transition [113,115,116].…”

“…There is a need for entrepreneurs to use wisdom in management strategies despite their fear of failure [33,116] and the risk of losing profits. [4,5,25,30]. A sustainable entrepreneurial strategy can assist in sectors such as "slow food" or agriculture [94,95], but also in those that have slow growth, and can provide a level of stability that can help them to resist a crisis [4,5,18,26,33,74].…”

“…Entrepreneurs should also be well informed about the interdependence of these worlds and their events and actions. [7,25,28,31] Sustainability 2022, 14, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 18…”

“…For example, an entrepreneur who is entirely oriented toward profit maximization is not motivated to create a bond with the area where the enterprise operates; instead, they exploit the community's workforce, raw materials or strategic position [24], and the capital generated is sent elsewhere, leaving the community that invested in this activity impoverished. Sometimes, the environment in which these communities live become polluted, and they suffer socio-economic distress [25][26][27]. In contrast, some projects offer an alternative entrepreneurial model based not only on economics, but also on innovative strategies and social aspects of the area in which they operate [28][29][30][31], also involving some integrated models of the stakeholder theory [32].…”

“…Future entrepreneurs must also be trained to consider these factors, as well as the social impact in terms of community wellness, including terms of employment, social cohesion, a sense of community and community empowerment [43][44][45]. It is not just an ethical question because an enterprise that acts responsibly will be appreciated by the community, which may lead to stronger partnerships [3,5,25,28,37]. In the next section, we describe our hypothesis for conducting a literature review in relation to the coexistence of multiple factors, such as earnings and environmental and social sustainability, to reinforce entrepreneurship organization and then describe this scientific literature with state-of-the-art cluster mapping that defines its various components.…”