SPECIAL ISSUE MARCH 8
Persuasive Communication and Social Purpose Brands: Realities and Challenges in the Design of Creative Strategies
Persuasive Communication and Social Purpose Brands: Realities and Challenges in the Design of Creative Strategies
The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for change in brand communication, which aims to convey ideas of trust, service, commitment, and a relationship with consumers (Xifra, 2020; Fernández-Blanco, Hernández-Zelaya & Alameda, 2021). The crisis has added a new dimension to the revolution in persuasive communication resulting from the popularization of collaborative digital platforms that facilitate interaction between users in real time (Sabich & Steinberg, 2017; Sánchez-Vera, Solano-Fernández & Recio-Caride, 2019), the new possibilities offered by media convergence, and the so-called post-advertising movement (Solana, 2010), which has fostered the dissemination of more personal, transparent messages and empathetic, interactive content.
The idea of the consumer as the protagonist of the story in persuasive communication and consistency between a company’s “storytelling” and its “storydoing” (De Miguel-Zamora & Toledano-Cuevas-Mons, 2018) are expressed in the notion of the social purpose brand. In addition to offering the best product or service, “brands with purpose” (Milagro, 2021) seek to contribute to improving society, the environment, and our quality of life. Their communication strategies are therefore aimed at depicting them as useful brands, conveying the idea of a vocation of service and offering users solutions through different formats and/or content, such as product analysis, connection of their rhetoric with consumer trends, advice, storytelling, challenges or tutorials, among other initiatives (Castelló-Martínez & Barrilero-Carpio, 2021: 50).
Videos on platforms like YouTube can be an ideal way of building this relationship with users based on social listening (Costa-Sánchez & Túñez-López, 2019: 224). The branded content format also allows brands to integrate their company’s values (Sanz-Marcos & Micaletto, 2019) into educational, informational, and entertainment content and to offer the audience a memorable and meaningful experience (Castelló-Martínez & Del Pino-Romero, 2019: 267; Sánchez-Olmos, 2020; Waqas, Hamzah & Mohd, 2021), thereby enhancing the company’s positioning on the market as an expert in a particular area, whether or not that area is related to the sector in which it operates.
Communication poses all these challenges to the design of creative strategies today. Consumers, once passive subjects, have now become content creators for the brand, or what some scholars refer to as adprosumers (Martínez-Sala, Segarra-Saavedra & Monserrat-Gauchi, 2018). This further enriches the development of corporate communication strategies, as companies benefit from the support of a content co-creator who influences their brand image and their public reputation. With all of the above in mind, there is a clear need for analysis and reassessment of the creative and communication strategies adopted by social purpose brands.
Key topics
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Creative strategies and media strategies in the communication of social purpose companies.
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Branded content initiatives adopted by social purpose companies.
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Corporate social responsibility communication initiatives adopted by socially committed companies.
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The use of paid, owned, earned, and shared media by social purpose companies.
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Digital communication strategies: humanizing the brand.
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Communication strategies to promote the brand-consumer relationship. Brand empathy.
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Fake news and falsely committed brands.
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Sustainable, responsible, committed brands and their target audiences.
Key words: Useful brands, brand purpose, creative strategy, strategic communication planning, persuasive communication, corporate social responsibility, advertising, marketing, communication, branded content, social media.
Deadline: February 15, 2023
Coordinators
Araceli Castelló-Martínez
Associate Professor. Department of Communication and Social Psychology. University of Alicante (Spain).
Author of the books From Advertising to Integrated Persuasive Communication. Strategy and empathy (2019), Communication in constant change (2013) and Business strategies in Web 2.0. Social networks (2010). He has published more than 40 articles in scientific journals and more than 30 book chapters. Member of the research group "Communication and Specific Audiences" of the University of Alicante, the research project "Adkids Mobile" and various teaching innovation projects. He has more than 2000 citations in Google Scholar, with an h-index of 22 and an i10 index of 38.
Lines of research: digital communication, creative strategy, advertising planning, brand purpose, communication and specific audiences.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5783-344X
Juan Monserrat-Gauchi
Full Professor of University. Department of Communication and Social Psychology. University of Alicante (Spain).
Author of the books Planificación Estratégica de la Comunicación en Redes Sociales (2017), Cómo elaborar un Plan Estratégico de Comunicación (2014) and El Anunciante Franquiciador, Sistemas y Procesos de Comunicación Comercial (2012). He has published more than 40 articles in scientific journals, 4 full-length books and more than 15 book chapters. Member of the research group "Communication and Specific Audiences" of the University of Alicante and of several teaching innovation projects. He has more than 600 citations in Google Scholar, with an H Index of 14 and an i10 Index of 22.
Lines of research: brand communication systems and processes, strategic communication planning, franchise communication, communication and specific audiences.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1818-2968
Joaquim Brigas
President of the Polytechnic Institute of Guarda since December 3, 2018. Coordinating Professor of the School of Education, Communication and Sport (ESECD) in the Scientific-Technical Unit (UTC) of Communication at ESECD.
Specialist in Advertising, Consumption and Marketing, degree awarded by the University of Vigo, PhD in Advertising and Public Relations from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication, University of Vigo and enrolled at the University of Porto. Master and Bachelor in Geography by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra. He is author and co-author of several academic publications in the field of communication and has participated in several scientific projects. He is a member of the CEPESE research center of the University of Porto and the UDI, having also organized several scientific events.
He has held various leadership and management positions, having been director of the ESECD between 1998 and 2009, coordinator of UTC in Communication, director of the Degree in Communication and Public Relations, director of the Master's Degree in School Libraries and head of the disciplinary area of communication.
As part of his teaching activity, he was author and co-author of several pedagogical publications. Responsible for several curricular units, supervised master's degree and curricular internship projects. He has been president and member of doctoral, master's and internship tribunals. He organized several educational events, such as congresses, conferences and study visits.
