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\r\nliterature on brand activism to explore how brand leaders construct themselves as\r\nactivists in contemporary society and the challenges they face inherent to their roles.\r\nPurpose of the paper: The aim of our paper is to shed light on how the cultural\r\ntensions of being a socio-political activist and an iconic fashion entrepreneur in the\r\ncurrent scenario of consumer movements and collective agitations are constructed\r\nand amplified in social media platforms.\r\nMethodology: We developed an in-depth critical case centered on Vivienne\r\nWestwood as person, leader, and brand. We adopted a netnographic research design\r\nthat combined a diachronic, retrospective, and auto-biographical reconstruction of\r\nVivienne Westwood’s life story, with non-participant observation of online posts,\r\nconversations, and comments centered on Westwood as person and as brand, shared\r\non social media platforms.\r\nResults: Our study highlights a series of clashes that arise when an activist leader\r\ndoes 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,\r\nengaging, and fine-tuning with stakeholders, but rather indulges in a self-referential\r\nattitude aimed at giving full expression to her changing moods, needs, and desires.\r\nPractical implications: This paper highlights the challenges of being an activist\r\nleader and brand in contemporary woke society. In so doing, it provides strategic\r\nguidelines on how communication should be conceived in the company to achieve\r\nethical leadership and overcome cultural tensions.\r\nOriginality of the paper: This paper contributes to advance brand and CEO\r\nactivism as well as strategic communication theoretical debate, through explicitly\r\nlinking the tensions and the clashes between authentic purpose and commodified\r\nmarket logics emerging in social media platforms to a lack of exercise of ethical\r\ncommunication leadership on the part of the brand leader.