Scope
Audiovisual production
Digital and Multimedia
Status
Concluded
Simone Antonucci
Subject
The research is configured as a work of data collection, monitoring and analysis on the production of audiovisuals and other digital multimedia content (commercials, video clips, web series and miniseries, etc.) that tell micro-stories and stories in the field of Italian commercial and corporate communication in the last two years, comparing it with some important international best practices, such as those that emerge, in February of each year, on the occasion of the US Super Bowl and on the occasion of the Advertising Grand Prix in Cannes. The corpus of analysis, the object of the research, consists of over 100 commercials, circulated on classic and digital media from 2013 to today, within the context of both the Italian and international media. More specifically, the research focused on commercials that in the field of contemporary commercial and corporate communication present the characteristic traits of virality, a term with which we refer to all audiovisual advertising texts that are widely distributed and viewed.
For the work of monitoring and collecting advertising texts, a purely quantitative research was used, in order to have objectively measurable and comparable numerical data to be able to define the virality or otherwise of a spot. However, other aspects of virality were not taken into consideration, which it was not always possible to quantify, such as the sharing of the spots or the extent of their media coverage, but also the comments and reactions on the web.
Learning outcomes
Starting from the monitoring and analysis of over one hundred successful commercials that circulate
on media and new media in both the Italian and international context, the research objectives are:
- propose a simple and usable methodology – but with solid scientific bases – that allows us to distinguish advertising texts that use narrative structures from those that do not
- propose a practical, useful and easy-to-use toolbox for those who, working in the advertising sector, encounter the constant need to produce audiovisual advertising texts that aim for maximum sharing and diffusion
If, on the one hand, through semiotic analysis it is possible to identify and isolate the supporting structures of an advertising text that characterize its media success, on the other hand, these same elements and structures, since they are recurrent and widely generalizable, can be thought of as tools from which to design and create successful commercials. To indicate these elements and structures, but also ways of articulating and organizing meaning, we use the expression "activators of virality" to account for their practical and operational utility.
Status of works
The research ended in February 2024. We will proceed to extrapolate a simple and non-specialist methodology/grid, that is, usable for commercial communication professionals. Presentation of the results in the most appropriate venues, not only academic, but also professional (for example, Art Directors Club Italiano, Istituto dell'Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria, Associazione Italiana Copywriter, and so on) during 2024.