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Purpose In recent years, brands have increasingly engaged in corporate political advocacy (CPA; also termed brand activism or corporate sociopolitical activity) by taking positions on polarizing sociopolitical issues. Recent experimental research suggests that consumers respond to CPA based on its alignment with their own values, and that it typically induces an overall negative response. This study aims to provide additional insights by exploring consumer brand perceptions following CPA. Design/methodology/approach An event study of 106 CPA events and weekly consumer brand perception data was conducted. A regression model was used to investigate the moderating effects of CPA effort, concurrence and the strength of the online protests evoked by the CPA. Findings The results show that CPA had a negative effect on consumers’ brand perceptions and that the effect was stronger for customers relative to non-customers. The negative effect was attenuated by CPA concurrence and amplified by effort. Additionally, online protests were driven by the CPA effort and had a strong negative effect on brand perception. Online protests were stronger in the past, and, in turn, the negative effects of CPA on brand perceptions have slightly weakened in recent years. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the role of online protests following CPA and distinguishing consumer and customer responses. This study also provides converging evidence of the moderating effects of effort and concurrence identified in previous studies.

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PurposeConsumers play a central role in the creation of transformative value, enhancing the well-being of people and the planet. With this article, the authors synthesize service and communication scholars' views to conceptually discuss opportunities and challenges on how to involve consumers in the ideation, creation and dissemination of transformative value. In doing so, the authors identify avenues for future research.Design/methodology/approachThis research relies on a review of service and communication literature, connecting their insights to real world examples.FindingsConsumers are involved in the ideation, creation and dissemination of transformative value by engaging in customer innovation, customer participation and customer dissemination behaviors. In relation to these types of customer involvement, four overarching research themes emerge in the context of transformative services: (1) the voice of the non-customer, (2) protecting vulnerable customers, (3) consumer literacy and (4) WOM as a double-edged sword.Originality/valueThis research contributes to transformative service research by assessing the opportunities and challenges related to customers' involvement in the ideation, creation and dissemination of transformative value. Additionally, it identifies avenues for the future at the intersection of communication and service research.

Brand alliances are becoming increasingly complex, as marketers have begun to combine not only two but multiple brands to foster spillover effects. A particularly complex brand-alliance strategy is team brands, which combine various brands under a team-brand name. Using data from the Marvel brand universe, we examine contingency factors of sales spillover effects between team brands (e.g., Avengers) and their constituent brands (e.g., Hulk). We investigate the moderating role of key network characteristics, describing the team-brand networks and the constituent brands’ roles within these networks from both a firm perspective (brand-brand networks reflecting managers’ decisions about which constituent brands to combine) and a consumer perspective (brand-association networks reflecting consumers’ team-brand associations). The results show that network characteristics strongly affect spillovers and, more importantly, that their effect depends on both the direction (spillover from constituent brands to team brands or vice versa) and the network (brand-brand vs. brand-association network).