Abstract

As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, academics and practitioners alike wondered how and to what extent brands should adapt their advertising and communication efforts to remain resonant and to engage their audiences. Gathering and processing a unique data set composed of about 12,000 tweets of 76 leading brands associated with seven Italian industries, this research examines how rhetorical appeals that brands adopted evolved on Twitter during the pandemic. Theoretically, the research is grounded on an institutional logic perspective and resorts to the Aristotelian categories of logos, ethos, and pathos to make sense of the rhetorical appeals brands adopted. Methodologically, we relied on the most recent text-mining protocols in marketing studies. Our analyses outline that during the lockdown brands resorted to emotive appeals characterized by intense ethical and social overtones. Regarding consumers’ response in their social media engagement, we find they appreciated this strategy the brands followed.

摘要

随着 Covid-19 大流行的展开，学者和从业者都想知道品牌应该如何以及在多大程度上调整他们的广告和传播工作，以保持共鸣并吸引观众。该研究收集和处理由与意大利七个行业相关的 76 个领先品牌的约 12,000 条推文组成的独特数据集，研究了大流行期间品牌在 Twitter 上采用的修辞诉求如何演变。从理论上讲，该研究基于制度逻辑的观点，并借助亚里士多德的标志、精神和悲情类别来理解品牌所采用的修辞诉求。在方法论上，我们依赖于营销研究中最新的文本挖掘协议。我们的分析概述了在封锁期间，品牌诉诸以强烈的道德和社会色彩为特征的情感诉求。关于消费者在社交媒体参与中的反应，我们发现他们很欣赏品牌所遵循的这种策略。