Abstract:
Social Justice Content Marketing (SJCM) presents unique challenges to the marketer beyond the
traditional marketing tools used to message the consumer effectively. Consumers demand that corporations
take action on social issues, yet it is dif@icult for consumers to de@ine for corporations or marketers what
such actions should entail or whether initiatives are effective from the corporate and societal dimensions.
Over the last thirty years, changes in media have divided consumer attention across multiple media
channels, and message persistence is decreased due to increased message volumes overall. Positioning of
SJCM messages is often unintended. Identity via labeling, the backbone of traditional marketing
segmentation, targeting, and positioning, is counterproductive in SJCM communications. We used a
netnographic approach to capture responses to the National Football League’s SJCM advertisement Football
is for Everyone to determine why consumers rejected the advertisement. We applied Stuart Hall’s reception
theory to categorize consumer responses and used social dominance theory, labeling and identity
frameworks, and semiotics under Pierce. In addition, we examined the bene@it to corporate revenue and
societal improvement. The results found were that advertisement rejection was due to oppositional and
denotative decoding resulting from polysemic symbol versus iconic usage and encoding non-socially
dominant beliefs as dominant beliefs in the advertisement. Iconographic messaging reduces non-preferred
and negotiated decoding. Further, some corporations may bene@it from SJCM @inancially, but others may
suffer substantial @inancial loss. The gains are more tied to the alignment of core customer demographics
and existing beliefs with the advertisement and losses with a disconnect with customer beliefs.
Description:
Jurnal Ilmu Komunikasi , Vol. 6 (1), April, 2023. p.49-70.
