ABSTRACT

Dailami Firdaus. B0317011. Audience Analysis on Nike’s Brand Activism in “For once, Don’t Do It” Advertisement on YouTube Thesis: English Department. Faculty of Cultural Sciences. Universitas Sebelas Maret Surakarta.

Brand activism is an emerging strategy in which brands are taking public stances on current issues. The murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement protests have attracted corporate brands into engaging in brand activism regarding the racial issue, including Nike. On May 2020, Nike uploaded an ad campaign video regarding this issue on YouTube titled 'For once, Don't Do It'. This research aims to see the audience’s perception towards Nike's support for Black Lives Matter movement and racial issues in their advertisement video and find the meaning of the perceptions in the context of the use of social movement in popular culture in American society. This research applied Stuart Hall's reception theory and Guy Debord's spectacle theory. This research belonged to qualitative research. The data were taken from the comments from YouTube users who have watched the video. The result shows that the majority of the YouTube commenters take the oppositional position and perceive Nike’s support for Black Lives Matter movement and social issues as ingenuine. Secondly, the spectacle in Nike's brand activism does not affect the majority of the audiences as they use Nike's poor track records to counter it. This shows that not all social movements can be commodified to promote brand image and gain profits, as poor track records and ingenuine actions of a brand affect how people perceive the brand itself.