3 - How Does Public Opinion Shape Corporate Political Advocacy?

Summary

In this chapter, I explain how fear of a public backlash shapes how companies engage in the political system. I outline a probabilistic chain of events that can lead from a company engaging in advocacy to being noticed and criticized by activists, to that criticism spurring a larger public response, to eventual damage to a company’s brand and reputation. Certain attributes of companies and advocacy strategies change the probability of each of these events happening, which means that (a) some companies are inherently more vulnerable than others and (b) companies can take intentional steps to reduce these probabilities in order to engage in advocacy while skirting damage. This chapter produces a set of expectations I test in the remainder of the book – that public backlash to corporate advocacy is a form of political speech and signaling rather than a statement about consumer behavior; that companies fear this backlash and “boycotts” primarily because of fear of brand damage, not necessarily sales; and that companies engage in particular strategies to either hide their political advocacy or defuse the public anger over it.