Lead supervisor:
Dr Marcus Gomes 
Other supervisor(s):
- Dr Genevieve Shanahan
Start date: January 2026 (Full time)
Award: General
Subject Pathway:
Management and Business
Thematic Cluster:
Economy, Enterprise, and Productivity Cluster
In partnership with:
What Explains Brand Purpose’s Rise and Demise? A Comparative Study of Purpose Ecosystems in the FMCG sector
My research investigates why brand purpose (BP) and brand activism (BA) are being rolled back in many politically polarised global North markets while remaining relatively stable and legitimate in some low and middle-income economies, focusing empirically on the fast-moving consumer goods sector. It starts from the puzzle that initiatives once celebrated as evidence of corporate responsibility are now framed as an “unwelcome distraction” in the North, yet embraced as development-aligned, multi-actor collaborations in contexts such as Kenya.
The purpose of the research is threefold. First, it explains how public, private, and civil-society actors collectively construct and sustain “purpose ecosystems”, shaping the market for brand purpose. Second, it examines how institutional and sectoral configurations influence the variation, stability and legitimacy of these ecosystems across contexts. Third, through a comparative case study of selected FMCG brands operating in the Global South and the Global North, it explores what this divergence reveals about the future trajectories of brand purpose under conditions of populism, noisy politics and heightened scrutiny.
Conceptually, my research aims to clarify the boundaries between corporate social responsibility, brand purpose and brand activism, treating brand purpose as a contested form of moral market-making rather than a straightforward marketing tool.
By integrating these strands, my research aims to show when and why brand purpose gains or loses legitimacy, why it appears more durable in some emerging markets than in the global North, and how firms might design more authentic, context-appropriate purpose strategies. In doing so, it will advance theory on the politics of branding and offer practical guidance for organisations navigating intensifying social and political pressures. These contributions will benefit scholars, practitioners and policymakers.
Research Impact
My research makes three interrelated contributions to academic knowledge. First, it advances conceptual clarity in an area where the boundaries between corporate social responsibility (CSR), brand purpose (BP) and brand activism (BA) remain blurred. Existing literature highlights significant ambiguity surrounding the meaning, scope and measurement of BP, with BP representing only a small proportion of published research compared with CSR. By systematically distinguishing BP/BA from CSR and theorising BP as a form of moral market-making, the project provides a clearer conceptual foundation for evaluating purpose-led strategies and understanding why organisations adopt them. This addresses a recognised gap in both academic and practitioner debates.
Second, my research contributes to growing scholarship on the politicisation of markets and the cultural role of brands. Prior work shows how brands operate as ideological resources and how populism reshapes expectations of corporate behaviour. However, little research explains why BP appears unstable in global North markets yet more durable in certain low and middle-income contexts. By comparing the political, institutional and sectoral conditions underpinning these divergent trajectories, the research project extends theories of brand politics and offers new insight into the relationship between populism, legitimacy and corporate moral claims.
Third, my research contributes methodologically and empirically by analysing BP/BA as multi-actor ecosystems involving firms, governments, NGOs, agencies and consumers. While existing research often focuses on organisations alone, this study examines how purpose is collectively constructed, contested and institutionalised. The comparative analysis of FMCG brands in the Global South and the Global North generates new empirical knowledge about how purpose strategies operate across distinct governance configurations and development contexts.