Fiction as advertising: a semiotic-narrative analysis of Corporate Advertainment

El objetivo de este articulo es estudiar el fenomeno publicitario del advertainment – entendido como un tipo de branded content en formato de entretenimiento– desde una perspectiva semiotico-narrativa que toma como modelo analitico el Programa Narrativo de Greimas y el concepto narratologico de “actante”. El advertainment supone una formula mercadotecnica de gran interes desde un punto de vista semiotico, ya que se basa en la integracion de valores intangibles de marca en productos de entretenimiento, y, hasta cierto punto, implica la superacion de la publicidad tradicional. Este articulo persigue descubrir que rol actancial adoptan los productos y valores de marca dentro de las narraciones corporativas, asi como los desarrollos narrativos predominantes. Dado que la ficcion audiovisual es uno de los formatos mas relevantes del advertainment, los conceptos teoricos se aplican a una muestra de 72 peliculas corporativas de ficcion que representan a marcas de primera fila. Los resultados indican que el patron narrativo de las peliculas de corporate advertainment parece estar asentado fundamentalmente sobre los generos de accion y comedia, y articulado semioticamente sobre un esquema actancial donde productos y valores de marca adoptan el rol de “ayudante”, posibilitando que los sujetos de las historias superen las pruebas que se les presentan y accedan al objeto deseado. En cualquier caso, las ficciones corporativas se ven asimismo obligadas a descansar en contenidos extrapublicitarios que doten de interes a las historias narradas. Los datos tambien indican que el product placement y el brand placement siguen estando presentes en las narraciones filmicas de advertainment.The aim of this paper is to study from a semio-narrative perspective the advertising phenomenon know as “advertainment”, which may be understood as a type of branded content in entertainment format. For this purpose, we use the Narrative Program developed by Greimas as analytical model, as well as the narratological concept of “actant”. Advertainment is a marketing device of great interest from a semiotic point of view, since it is based on the integration of intangible brand values in entertainment products and to some extent, goes beyond advertising. This paper seeks to discover which actantial role is adopted by products and brand values within corporate narratives, as well as the predominant narrative developments that take place in the films. Since audiovisual fiction is one of the most relevant advertainment formats, theoretical concepts are applied to a sample of 72 corporate fiction films that represent top brands. Results indicate that the narrative pattern or corporate advertainment fims seems to be settled mainly on the action and comedy genres. In addition, this pattern is semiotically articulated on an actancial model where products and brand values play the role of “assistant”. The mentioned role enables the characters of stories overcome the challenges presented to them before achieving the desired object. In any case, corporate fictions are also obliged to rely on extra-advertising content in order to provide with interest the narrated stories. What is more, data also indicate that product placement and brand placement are a still present in the film narratives of advertainment