The dean of the Faculty and full professor of Advertising, Dr Alfonso Méndiz, presented two papers. In the first, “Branded content y transmedia storytelling en la publicidad de IKEA” [Branded content and transmedia storytelling in IKEA advertising], he analysed the Swedish company’s strategies for building public empathy, especially with the campaign “Nada como el hogar para amueblarnos la cabeza” [Nothing like a home to furnish the mind].
In the second, “El spot publicitario en el marco del storytelling digital” [Advertisements in the context of digital storytelling], Dr Méndiz draws from classic narrative theory to pose a new perspective on ads. To date, television advertisements have almost always been studied from the point of view of their commercial purpose, downgrading aspects related to their narrative configuration. With the upsurge in storytelling and the creation of longer ads for YouTube or the Internet, these advertisements are currently being consumed as small audiovisual stories, with a proximity that differentiates them from feature films. The themes and characters of the ad (the couple saying goodbye on a platform, going home for Christmas) are the same as in classic literary stories.
The course coordinator for Advertising, Dr Carolina Serra, and lecturer Cristina Martorell presented a paper on “Redes sociales y Universidad: una comparativa entre España y Ecuador” [Social media and University: a comparison between Spain and Ecuador]. This study, carried out jointly with two lecturers from the Technical University of the North (UTN, Ecuador), outlines the findings of an international research project between Communication students from both universities, which aims to determine which social media university students use to perform academic tasks in both countries.
