The virtuous brand: The perils and promises of brand virtue signaling

Abstract

Signaling how virtuous a brand is has become an ever more common strategy. Brands have recently outcompeted one another to align themselves with various causes. We explore the rise in virtue signaling and review prominent examples of brands that have linked themselves to social movements—some successfully, some unsuccessfully. We draw on evolutionary theory to develop a conceptual framework to think about brand virtue signaling. Armed with this framework, managers can assess whether their brands should adopt virtue signaling as a strategy and assess the short- and long-term implications of such a decision.