The inflation of the emotional in advertising,. Does it represent a change of paradigm?

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the increasing use of emotional and experiential elements in advertising as an inflation of the imaginary in the semiotic production of sign/merchandise which, in turn, can be placed in the evolution of the representative function of the brand, having moved from representing the product itself on to becoming the place where, in a sort of projective activity, the individual consumer is represented. From this approach, we can see how, in recent years, there has been an evolution -rather than a change of paradigm- within the so-called advertising of meaning. Thus, a now renewed semiotics production of sign/merchandise is increasingly drawing its attention to the creation of brands more and more virtualized in which the value –attributed in referential advertising to the inherent features of the product- has become nearly exclusively predicated about the brand/corporation and the experience its consumptions entails. Moreover, the increasing use of emotional and experiential elements has led to the development of new communication strategies which form a set of mechanisms, working both as a way to densify these more and more self-referential, virtualized brands as well as an element of invisibility or hiding from the consumers’ eyes of the logic of the semiotics production of sign/merchandise, which consist of a triple figuration of the same: a) on different supports and surfaces, b) in the individual consumer, and c) by means of its narrativization.