Dimensional Activation and Cohort Divergence: A Longitudinal Decomposition of Purpose Advertising Effectiveness

Purpose campaigns are evaluated by aggregate metrics that cannot distinguish structural success from surface popularity. This paper presents what is, to the author’s knowledge, the first formal application of the SBT eight-dimension decomposition to a longitudinal purpose-campaign case study: Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” (2004–2026) across four temporal cross-sections. Four observer cohorts – Purpose-Aligned, Product-Pragmatist, Social-Signal Reader, and Skeptic-Critic – receive identical signals but form structurally different brand convictions. Within the case set considered here, disproportionate commercial impact is traced to dimensional creation: the activation of a previously null dimension that opens new perceptual territory rather than competing within existing space. Five propositions address dimensional creation, observer heterogeneity, portfolio interference, counter-cultural decay, and dimensional specificity. Independent quantitative evidence from a large-scale AI-observer study replicates the cohort-divergence and Patagonia-as-exception patterns, providing an empirical anchor across a controllable observer population. The framework extends brand-equity, authenticity, and cultural-branding literatures by supplying a formal, cohort-contingent account of simultaneous positive and negative conviction formation. Includes zharnikov-2026p-r10.yaml (Paper Spec v0.1.0) – a machine-readable specification of the paper’s claims, assumptions, and dependencies. The paper’s full machine-first bundle (the SPINE claim/dependency graph and the ONTOLOGY term module) lives in the public repository; see github.com/spectralbranding/paper-spec for the standard. This PDF is generated programmatically from that machine-first source under a research-as-repository model.