ESG in advertising narratives: case analysis of Golden Lion Winning Campaigns at Cannes 2022

Abstract

The key question that will be addressed in this research is whether advertising narratives feature initiatives within the ESG - Environment, Social and Governance - framework. Investors increasingly value companies that promote sustainable impact actions, something that the promoting companies report in detail in their ESG reports directed at corporate stakeholders. To identify and understand how brands present such initiatives to the consumer market, we checked campaigns awarded with the Golden Lion of Advertising at Cannes 2022. The methodological cut involved three award categories, being analyzed 19 campaigns from 10 different countries.Besides the bibliographical survey on discourse analysis and content analysis, this exploratory qualitative and quantitative research had the inductive method to direct the individual analysis of each campaign. As a result, we identified that more than half of the campaigns address aspects related to ESG initiatives, being the social scope addressed by most of the campaigns. A result that provokes new hypotheses and possibilities of research continuity.