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.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

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.

References

Alvarado López, M.C. (2009). ¿Publicidad social? Usos y abusos de “lo social” en publicidad. Icono 14, 7 (2), 125-151. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/5525/552556589008.pdf

Alvarado López, M.C. (2010). La publicidad social: una modalidad emergente de comunicación. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid.

Andreu, L., Casado-Díaz, A.B. & Mattila, A.S. (2015). Effects of message appeal and service type in CSR communication strategies. Journal of Business Research, 68 (7), 1488–1495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.01.039

Bala, M & Verma, D. (2018). A critical review of digital marketing. International journal Management, IT & Engineering., 10(8), 321-339. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3545505

Bartlett, J. L. & Devin, B. (2011). Management, communication and corporate social responsibility. In: Ihlen, Øyvind; Bartlett, Jennifer L.; May, Steve (eds.). The handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility. John Wiley & Sons, pp. 47-66. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118083246.ch3

Baudrillard, J. (1974). La sociedad de consumo. Sus mitos, sus estructuras. Siglo XXI.

Baumman, Z. (2007). Vida de consumo. Fondo de cultura económica.

Bermejo Berros, J. (2007). Teoría del Hexágono de Apelaciones Publicitarias y de Necesidades Emergentes. Pensar la Publicidad, 1(1), 99-130.https://bit.ly/3H5v5wL

Bourdieu, P. (1998). La distinción: Criterio y bases sociales del gusto. Taurus.

Buitrago, A. & Martín-García, A. (2021). YouTube doctors confronting COVID-19: scientific–medical dissemination on YouTube during the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18 (21), 11229.

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111229

Caro Almeda, A. (2002). El valor de consumo a la corporación como valor. Sphera publica: revista de ciencias sociales y de la comunicación, (2), 65-80. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/635817.pdf

Caro Almeda, A. (2010). Comprender la publicidad. Trípodos

Casalá Surribas, I. (s/f b). Cómo demostrar la eficacia de la comunicación y de la construcción de marca. Premios a la Eficacia 2006-2016. Segunda parte. https://www.anunciantes.com/noticia/demostrar-la-eficacia-la-comunicacion-la-construccion-marca/

Chaparro Escudero, M. (2015). Claves para repensar los medios y el mundo que habitamos. La distopía del desarrollo. Ediciones desde abajo.

Coleman, J.T. (2022). Giving over selling: advertising for the social Enterprise. Journal of Business Strategy, https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-11-2021-0179

Cortina, A. (2002). Por una ética del consumo. Taurus.

Dahlen, M. (2021). It’s Time for TGA: Truly Good Advertising. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising. (42). https://doi.org/10.1080/10641734.2020.1780999

De Andrés del Campo, S. y Chaparro Escudero, M. (2022). Comunicación radical. Despatriarcalizar, decolonizar y ecologizar la cultura mediática. Gedisa

Denning, S. (2022). Crafting a performance-focused strategy of “Deep Purpose”. Strategy & Leadership, 3 (50), 29-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-03-2022-0020

Eguizábal, R. (1998). Historia de la publicidad. Eresma & Celeste.

Estanyol, E (2020). Comunicación de la responsabilidad social corporativa (RSC): Análisis de las campañas más premiadas en 2018. Profesional de la información, 29 (3).

https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.34

Estermann, J. (2012). Crisis civilizatoria y Vivir Bien. Polis, (33).

https://journals.openedition.org/polis/8476

Feltz, B. (2020). Filosofía y ética del cambio climático. El correo de la Unesco, (3), 6-9. https://doi.org/10.18356/5efbb75e-es

Fromm, E. (1965). The Application of Humanist Psychoanalysis to Marx’s Theory. In Erich Fromm (ed.), Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 214.

García, E. (2004). Medio ambiente y sociedad. La civilización industrial y los límites del planeta. Alianza Editorial.

Gibson, W.J. & Brown, A. (2009). Working with qualitative data. Sage Publications.

González Martín, J.A. (1982). Fundamentos para la teoría del mensaje publicitario. Ediciones Forja

Grupo Marcuse (2006). De la miseria humana en el medio publicitario. Editorial Melusina.

Hayko, G. (2010). Effects of advertising on society: A literary review. Hohonu, 8, pp. 78-82.

Hobsbawm, E.J. (1976). Las revoluciones burguesas. Guadarrama

Kahn, B. E.y Meyer, R.J. (1991). Consumer multi attribute judgments under attribute weight uncertainty. Journal of Consumer Research, 17(2), 508–522.

https://doi.org/10.1086/208574

Keller, K. L., Punam, A. y McGill, A.L. (1994). Differences in the relative influence of product attributes under alternative processing conditions: attribute importance versus attribute ease of imagability. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 3(1), 29–49.

Khalem, C. (1 de febrero de 2021). ¿Qué es el marketing impulsado por un propósito? https://www.adcouncil.org/all-articles/what-is-purpose-driven-marketing

Klein, N. (2002). No Logo. Ediciones Paidós Ibérica

Kostner, T. (2012). Goodvertising: Creative Advertising that Cares. Thames & Hudson

Lee, D., Hosanagar, K., & Nair, H. S. (2018). Advertising content and consumer engagement on social media: Evidence from Facebook. Management Science, 64(11), 5105-5131.

Lemkow, L. (2002). Sociología ambiental. Pensamiento socioambiental y ecología social del riesgo. Icaria

León, J.L. (1996). Los efectos de la publicidad. Editorial Ariel

Ley orgánica 34/1988, de 11 de noviembre, General de publicidad. Boletín oficial del Estado, n. 247, 15 noviembre, pp. 32464-32467. https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1988-26156

Lipovetsky, G. (2007). La felicidad paradójica. Ensayo sobre la sociedad del hiperconsumo. Anagrama.

Luque de Marcos, J., & Baraybar Fernández, A. (2018). Nuevas tendencias en la construcción de marcas: una aproximación al storydoing. Revista Prisma Social, (23), 435–458.

Marcas con valores (2022). Estudio Mconc 2022. La era de las consecuencias.

https://marcasconvalores.com/

Medina, J. (2006). Suma Qamaña: Por una convivencialidad postindustrial. GTZ-FAM

Naciones Unidas (2015). We can end poverty. Millennium development golas and beyond 2015. https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Naciones unidas (2019). Departamento de Asuntos Económicos y Sociales. Desarrollo sostenible. https://sdgs.un.org/goals

ONU (2019). Objetivos de desarrollo sostenible (ODS).

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/es/gender-equality

Pacheco Rueda, M. & Alvarado López, M.C. (2022). Publicidad, sostenibilidad y justicia social. Qué puede aportar la publicidad a la construcción de una sociedad mejor. Tirant Humanidades.

Pardun, C. J. (Ed.). (2013). Advertising and society. John Wiley & Sons.

Peninou, G. (1976). Semiótica de la publicidad. Gustavo Gili.

Pollay, R. W. (1986). The Distorted Mirror: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising. Journal of Marketing, (50) pp. 18-36. https://doi.org/10.2307/1251597

Puleo, A.H. (2011). Ecofeminismo para otro mundo posible. Cátedra

Puleo, A.H. (2015). Ecología y género en diálogo interdisciplinar. Plaza y Valdés.

Pyle, E., Furnham, A. & McClelland, A. (2022). Corporate social and environmental responsibility advertising: Advertising effectiveness as a function of viewing context. Journal of Brand Management. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41262-021-00269-z

Quesenberry, K. A. (2020). Social media strategy: Marketing, advertising, and public relations in the consumer revolution. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Ritzer, G. (2000). Encantar un mundo desencantado: la revolución de los medios de consumo. Ariel.

Schudson, M. (1984). Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion. Basic Books.

Segarra, T. & Torrejón, D. (2022). Toni Segarra y la publicidad: conversaciones con David Torrejón. Advook

Smith, R. & Deppa, B. (2009). Two dimensions of attribute importance. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 26(1), 28–38. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760910927028

Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (2008). Basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Sage Publications.

Toscani, O. (1996). Adiós a la publicidad. Omega

Varadarajan, P. R. & Menon, A. (1988). Cause-Related Marketing: A Coalignment of Marketing Strategy and Corporate Philanthropy, Journal of Marketing, (52), 58-74.

https://doi.org/10.2307/1251450

Veblen, T (1971). Teoría de la clase ociosa. Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Webster, K. (2015). The circular economy. A wealth of flows. Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Wimmer, R. D. y Dominick, J. R. (1996). La investigación científica de los medios de comunicación. Bosch

Xu, J. (2020). Unintended effects of advertising: An updated qualitative review. Review of Communication Research, 8, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.12840/ISSN.2255-4165.021

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