Activist brands commonly engage in controversies to redefine which opinions and ideas are acceptable to express publicly. We conceptualize this practice as free speech boundary work. How can activist brands negotiate the boundaries of free speech to authenticate their activist positioning? By conducting a comparative case study of 18 activist brands, we identify three controversial strategies—creating monstrous hybrids, challenging the establishment, and demonstrating exemplarity—each of them challenging the boundaries of free speech through a distinct mechanism. The results show that whether these strategies authenticate brands’ activism depends on their ability to communicate brands’ moral competency, defined in terms of moral sensitivity, moral vision, and moral integration. This study contributes to the literature on brand activism by proposing an integrative framework that articulates the mechanisms underlying the reformative power of controversial brand activism. Second, we contribute to the literature on brand activism authentication by introducing a competency-oriented view that reveals the heterogeneous and multidimensional nature of activism authenticity and expands our conception of the spectrum of moral territories with which activist brands can engage.

中文翻译：

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验证品牌激进主义：协商言论自由的界限以做出改变

激进品牌通常会参与争议，以重新定义可以接受公开表达的意见和想法。我们将这种做法概念化为言论自由边界工作。激进品牌如何协商言论自由的界限以验证其激进定位？通过对 18 个激进品牌进行比较案例研究，我们确定了三种有争议的策略——创造巨大的混合动力、挑战建立和展示榜样——它们中的每一个都通过独特的机制挑战言论自由的界限。结果表明，这些策略是否验证了品牌的积极性取决于他们传达品牌道德能力的能力，定义为道德敏感性、道德愿景和道德整合。本研究提出了一个综合框架，阐明了有争议的品牌行动主义的改革力量背后的机制，从而为品牌行动主义的文献做出了贡献。其次，我们通过引入一种以能力为导向的观点，揭示了激进主义真实性的异质性和多维性，并扩展了我们对激进主义品牌可以参与的道德领域范围的概念，从而为关于品牌激进主义认证的文献做出了贡献。