Advertising, Values and Social Change

This book stems from a question: in view of the important changes that occurred after the 2008 global financial crisis, which affected our culture, society and economy, is advertising in tune with the spirit of the times or do its narratives belong to a past which, with its values, is now far removed from the present and from the sentiment that characterises it? Based on a detailed analysis of the literature on the topic, we will argue that advertising does not have the power to impose any values on individuals, unless these values are already present and shared in the society that advertising draws from to build its narratives. In order to ascertain the presence or absence of the new set of values within advertising messages, we have carried out a qualitative and quantitative study of 2,357 spot ads (from 2012-2014) broadcast by Italian television networks over a 24-hour timeframe on a series of television channels. The qualitative part of this study uses content analysis to examine a series of spot ads, together with the analysis of the value representation they convey, based on the value model proposed by Schwartz and his colleagues. According to the results of our research, it is possible to identify a series of “languages” employed increasingly frequently in Italian advertising messages which show that advertising seems to actively listen to and absorb the social, economic, and cultural changes that have taken place. The resulting categorization of advertising languages is also a useful tool for marketers and advertisers in order to create narratives that tap into the shared sentiment of consumers.