Brand Activism in search for an ethical communication leader: Vivienne Westwood and the clashes between person and brand

Frame of the research: This paper builds on the recent, fast-growing body of literature on brand activism to explore how brand leaders construct themselves as activists in contemporary society and the challenges they face inherent to their roles. Purpose of the paper: The aim of our paper is to shed light on how the cultural tensions of being a socio-political activist and an iconic fashion entrepreneur in the current scenario of consumer movements and collective agitations are constructed and amplified in social media platforms. Methodology: We developed an in-depth critical case centered on Vivienne Westwood as person, leader, and brand. We adopted a netnographic research design that combined a diachronic, retrospective, and auto-biographical reconstruction of Vivienne Westwood’s life story, with non-participant observation of online posts, conversations, and comments centered on Westwood as person and as brand, shared on social media platforms. Results: Our study highlights a series of clashes that arise when an activist leader does not act as a true ethical leader of meanings and does not use engaging, and finetuning communication as a strategic lever to transform society through listening to, engaging, and fine-tuning with stakeholders, but rather indulges in a self-referential attitude aimed at giving full expression to her changing moods, needs, and desires. Practical implications: This paper highlights the challenges of being an activist leader and brand in contemporary woke society. In so doing, it provides strategic guidelines on how communication should be conceived in the company to achieve ethical leadership and overcome cultural tensions. Originality of the paper: This paper contributes to advance brand and CEO activism as well as strategic communication theoretical debate, through explicitly linking the tensions and the clashes between authentic purpose and commodified market logics emerging in social media platforms to a lack of exercise of ethical communication leadership on the part of the brand leader.