Social appeals and current advertising: analysis of their effectiveness and reflections from the sector

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4185/rlcs-2023-1996

Keywords:

advertisers, advertising, advertising effectiveness, marketing with purpose, social change

Abstract

In recent decades companies have begun to be aware of the importance of acquiring a social dimension and projecting it to their target audience, turning it into content within their commercial communications. This work arises with the aim of knowing the social appeals used in the most successful campaigns by the Spanish advertising industry awarded in recent years in the Awards for Effectiveness in Commercial Communication— Efi Awards— and, in addition, it collects on an exploratory basis the opinion that professionals in the sector have on this trend. To this end, a study is developed in two parts: a first quantitative applied on the advertisements awarded in the last twelve years in the awards; and a second qualitative one. by conducting interviews with creative agencies, media agencies, and advertisers. The results highlight the exceptional nature of "the social" within the awards and its scarce presence. Only 21.5% of the winning campaigns introduce some social content, with appeals coming from social reality being the most used. In addition, a positive assessment of the use of social appeals in advertising by professionals is detected, as long as it starts from a coherence between the reality of the brand and the social actions it transmits. It is noted that, although social issues are a recurring issue in the business world, advertising continues to prioritize its commercial function without assuming itself as a social institution.

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Author Biographies

Noemí Martín García, Universidad de Valladolid

Ph.D. in University of Valladolid, Graduate in Advertising and Public Relations (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). She developed her professional career as an Advertising Media Planner for ten years at Havas Media and Mindshareworld media agencies. Since 2018, she has been a professor of the subject of Research on advertising effectiveness and Advertising media: research, planning and management in the Degree in Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Valladolid. She is the author of several book chapters and papers about the relationship between advertising and the different media, that have been published in magazines such as El Profesional de la Información, Icono 14, Mediterránea de Comunicación...

María Cruz Alvarado López, Universidad de Valladolid

PhD in Advertising and Public Relations (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Full Professor at the University of Valladolid. She teaches the Degree in Advertising and Public Relations and the Master's Degree in Communication with Social Purposes. Her research focuses on the history of advertising, social advertising, and communication for social purposes. She is a member of the GICAVH Recognized Research Group in Audiovisual and Hypermedia Research and has published texts in Icono 14, Comunicar, Revista Latina, McGraw Hill or Fragua.

Alberto Martín García, Universidad de Valladolid

Alberto Martín García (Segovia, 1982) has a degree in Advertising and Public Relations at Universidad de Valladolid and PhD in Communication from the same institution, with the thesis entitled 'Analysis of the figure of the community manager as a voice of brands in social media'. His line of research is focused on social media and he has published in scientific journals as Profesional de la Información, Icono14, Revista Mediterránea de la Comunicación or Index Comunicación.
For more than twelve years he has combined his work as a freelance community manager with that of a professor at the María Zambrano Campus in Segovia, where he teaches the subjects Structure of the Advertising System and Creative Ideas, Methods and Strategies.
He has written four novels, obtaining with his publication, entitled 'El silencio de Raquel', the Caligrama Talent Award 2019.

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Published

2023-06-08

How to Cite

Martín García, N., Alvarado López, M. C., & Martín García, A. (2023). Social appeals and current advertising: analysis of their effectiveness and reflections from the sector. Revista Latina De Comunicación Social, (81), 63–85. https://doi.org/10.4185/rlcs-2023-1996

Issue

Section

Public media and digital ecosystem