Brand activism in the era of permacrisis: systematic literature review and future research agenda

Permacrisis - the perpetual state of facing complex and interconnected crises - has been identified as the forces that impact society as a whole. Brand activism (BA) has been emerging as a response whereby companies engage with divisive socio-political crises. However, the BA literature has not adequately addressed the new role that companies should play in mitigating the effects of permacrisis. We conduct a systematic literature review of 44 papers published between 2016 and 2024, applying the ADO framework. Our SLR inductively builds a framework of brand activism in the permacrisis that integrated themes across micro, meso and macro crises. Additionally, we highlight the interplay between necessity and opportunism in BA within the permacrisis context, offering new insights into its operations and mechanisms.