Marketplace Advocacy Campaigns

Despite the proliferation of marketplace advocacy campaigns, there has been little professional or academic research published evaluating the potential outcomes of this form of communication on audiences. Ostensibly the last book devoted to advocacy advertising was published in 1977. While the political and social changes of the 1970s are often credited with the rise of advocacy campaigns among many industries, surging public and media criticism regarding issues such as the environment and energy in recent years have made marketplace advocacy campaigns commonplace in today's advertising landscape. Given the political nature of marketplace advocacy and the potential ramifications on public policy, a quantitative assessment of stakeholder perceptions of marketplace advocacy is important for both professional and academic researchers interested in understanding the persuasive potential of marketplace advocacy. This book develops a model of marketplace advocacy influence based on relevant literature in advertising, marketing, social psychology, public relations, and political communication, and evaluates the model using a case study and statistical analyses. While this form of advocacy is relatively specialized, it represents an increasingly important and prevalent form of advocacy. It is important for both scholars and practitioners to understand how these campaigns may influence overall trust in the sponsoring industry as well as public acceptance of an industry's agenda. The model developed and tested in this book provides credence for the idea that these campaigns may be effective at accomplishing both of these objectives and demonstrates how industry approval, the overall goal of marketplace advocacy, might be achieved. By incorporating environmental concern as a measure of statistical control in both the model testing and follow-up analyses, the model also provides evidence of the moderating influence of heightened levels of environmental concern on marketplace advocacy outcomes. The book also provides an historical account of marketplace advocacy and describes several campaign case studies for context. This is an important book for researchers in the areas of corporate social responsibility, environmental advocacy, issue advertising, and public opinion. This book may also be appropriate for advanced advertising and public opinion classes.