TY - JOUR
T1 - Food for Thought
T2 - Audience Engagement with Sustainability Messages in Branded Content
AU - Swenson, Rebecca
AU - Olsen, Natalie
PY - 2018/10/3
Y1 - 2018/10/3
N2 - Branded platforms are a growing “gray-zone” of marketing and media messages, in which corporations and news journalists partner to create content that supports strategic corporate goals while aligning with a publication’s scope of editorial coverage. As corporations are key influencers of and contributors to environmental communication, this trend has the potential to change environmental dialogue. In this article, we closely examine messages about food and sustainability, created in partnership by Chipotle Mexican Grill and the Huffington Post news site. We illustrate how use of a branded platform expanded the scope of environmental topics, issues, and frames that Chipotle addresses, how frames identified here connect to frames in coverage of science-related issues, as identified by other scholars, and discuss how branded platforms allow corporations to draw attention to polarizing environmental issues while protecting stakeholder relationships and brand reputation.
AB - Branded platforms are a growing “gray-zone” of marketing and media messages, in which corporations and news journalists partner to create content that supports strategic corporate goals while aligning with a publication’s scope of editorial coverage. As corporations are key influencers of and contributors to environmental communication, this trend has the potential to change environmental dialogue. In this article, we closely examine messages about food and sustainability, created in partnership by Chipotle Mexican Grill and the Huffington Post news site. We illustrate how use of a branded platform expanded the scope of environmental topics, issues, and frames that Chipotle addresses, how frames identified here connect to frames in coverage of science-related issues, as identified by other scholars, and discuss how branded platforms allow corporations to draw attention to polarizing environmental issues while protecting stakeholder relationships and brand reputation.
KW - Sustainability
KW - branded content
KW - environmental communication
KW - frame analysis
KW - public relations
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85010647548&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85010647548&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17524032.2017.1279202
DO - 10.1080/17524032.2017.1279202
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85010647548
SN - 1752-4032
VL - 12
SP - 973
EP - 988
JO - Environmental Communication
JF - Environmental Communication
IS - 7
ER -