Driving Sustainable Consumption in the Digital Age: Perceived Authenticity in Brand Activism, Consumer Trust, and Behavioral Intentions

In an era of rapid digital transformation, brand activism has emerged as a prominent strategy through which organizations seek to signal social and environmental commitment while engaging increasingly sceptical and digitally empowered consumers. Within this context, perceived authenticity has become a critical evaluative mechanism shaping how digital brand activism is interpreted and whether it contributes to sustainable consumption and trust-based market outcomes. This study examines how perceived authenticity in digital brand activism is associated with consumer trust, attitudes toward socially engaged brands, and behavioral intentions that support sustainable consumption. Grounded in attribution theory and the authentic brand activism framework, the study adopts a quantitative, cross-sectional design based on an online survey of 240 consumers. The findings indicate that perceived authenticity is strongly associated with higher levels of consumer trust and more favorable attitudes toward digitally activist brands, reinforcing authenticity as a key trust-building mechanism in digital environments. Trust and attitudes are, in turn, positively associated with behavioral intentions such as purchasing, recommending, and willingness to pay a premium for sustainable products. However, behavioral intentions are weaker than trust and attitudinal evaluations, providing evidence of a persistent attitude–behavior gap that limits the translation of positive digital evaluations into concrete sustainable consumption outcomes. Exploratory results further suggest that the association between perceived authenticity of brand and behavioral intentions operates primarily through trust and attitudes rather than through a strong direct relationship. By clarifying these indirect pathways, the study advances attribution-based explanations of digital brand activism and contributes to research on smart innovation and digital sustainability by highlighting the role of authenticity in trust-based market outcomes. It also underscores the importance of authentic, data-informed digital strategies for fostering consumer trust, aligning brand activism with ESG principles, and supporting sustainable growth in digitally empowered markets.