Abstract:
In the field of corporate communication today, the trend is “to describe the brand”. Storytelling is a powerful resource that seeks to empathize with the public in order to sell, recruit, and convince. From the simplest and everyday product, to the act of trusting a person or an institution, the idea is to communicate what can be seen, touched and even what cannot be touched - elements that manipulate emotion and identification. But since the emergence of social media, a key player has appeared in the arena: one that beats the old “sender-recipient” system of message communication. Today, the message is horizontal and multidirectional. The brand is no longer the one that always proposes, nor it has the last word. There are hundreds,thousands of “subjects of communication”, willing to critically address, adhere or criticize, and finally share these contents, creating both an individual and a group communication experience. New messages emerge out of the previous one and merge in a collaborative production of meaning. The case of the advertising campaign “Hurricanes”, for the Argentinean beer company, Andes , is one example. The audio-visual material was tirelessly streamed on social media, and it was shared by those who rejected such a sexist and stereotyped proposal. The strength of the response was effective, and Andes had to revise its marketing strategy.