CORPORATE ACTIVISM IN RESPONSE TO THE WAR IN UKRAINE

Leading global brands have felt the need to adopt active positions regarding the war in Ukraine in response to pressure from their main stakeholders (including public authorities, clients, employees, and investors, among others). They have not only made decisions around their activities in Russia but have also communicated the reasons behind their initiatives to news media and shared their arguments with clients, partners, and social media users in general.

This phenomenon has offered an interesting opportunity to analyze the power of corporate reputation in a serious geopolitical crisis, so we deployed our qualitative and quantitative research capabilities in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world.

With help from our communication and public affairs specialists in the 12 countries where we operate, we have analyzed each nation’s brand and public reactions to the war in Ukraine. Furthermore, by studying mass data and applying semantic and artificial intelligence to over 1.5 million messages about the conflict on Twitter, in blogs, news sites, and forums, we have extracted valuable findings about brand reputation. The ideas set out below are based on data collected up to March 16, 2022.