Resilience and Anti-Stress during COVID-19 Isolation in Spain: An Analysis through Audiovisual Spots

This study analyses broadcasted advertising spots during the COVID-19 isolation period in Spain. It aims to identify the narrative communicative resources and messages spread by companies/brands under the background of a global pandemic, where a common pattern highlighting the social function of brands is supposed, specifically regarding stress and resilience. We propose a mixed method based on the combination of qualitative analysis of the content of a compendium of 71 commercials and statistical analysis to group and test the correlations between some key variables, thus incorporating multivariate analysis with a quantitative method. Our main finding is the collective trend and communicative behaviour in the advertising of companies/brands during isolation, in which a change in the traditional role of advertising communication has occurred, where advertisers have become a key support in combatting the disease and a key support for health and psychological management in the Spanish population. In fact, they act as guardians of resilience and promoters for alleviating stress.The research was funded by Corporate Brand Research Group UA_Brandscience (University of Alicante, Spain) and the Programa Operativo FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 under grant number UMA18-FEDERJA-148 and Plan Propio Universidad de Málaga