Sanders José, van Krieken Kobie
Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2018 Sep 19;9:1645. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01645. eCollection 2018.
This study examines how audiovisual brand stories both invite and enable consumers to enact heroic archetypes. Integrating research on the archetypal structure of narratives with research on the event structure of narratives, we distinguish singular plot stories (i.e., stories that a Hero's Journey) from embedded plot stories (i.e., stories that not only show but also one or more Hero's Journeys) and develop a conceptual and narratological framework to analyze their structural elements. Application of the framework to 20 brand stories representing 8 different brands reveals meaningful variation in elements between the singular plot stories and embedded plot stories. Differences in the expression of archetypes and event structure are argued to evoke different types of Hero enactment which in turn result in different outcomes. We specifically hypothesize that the enactment of heroic archetypes in singular plot stories primarily results in (pleasure), whereas the enactment of heroic archetypes in embedded plot stories primarily results in an outcome we describe as : a form of moral sense making of the self that advances one's practical wisdom and prudence. The final section of the paper discusses how cathartic and phronetic outcomes of hero enactment may foster the psychological bonding between brand and consumer, and invite consumers to align their moral values with the values that are reflected by heroic character traits. The central aims of the analysis presented are to provide an exploration of narrative phenomena in a reasonably broad range of brand story videos and foremost to provide a conceptual framework with an applicable instrument suited to analyze relevant categories in these brand stories. The present study is interdisciplinary in its approach to a contemporary, developing marketing phenomenon, applying psychological modeling of archetypes and heroic values with narratological insights on perspective-taking and story structure. Its contribution is to systemize, from a narratological viewpoint, how various narrative archetypes in brand video stories may contribute to the development of brand-consumer relations.
本研究考察了视听品牌故事如何引导并促使消费者展现英雄原型。我们将叙事的原型结构研究与叙事的事件结构研究相结合，区分了单一情节故事（即遵循“英雄之旅”的故事）和嵌入式情节故事（即不仅展现一个或多个“英雄之旅”的故事），并开发了一个概念性和叙事学框架来分析它们的结构元素。将该框架应用于代表8个不同品牌的20个品牌故事，揭示了单一情节故事和嵌入式情节故事在元素上存在有意义的差异。原型表达和事件结构的差异被认为会引发不同类型的英雄展现，进而导致不同的结果。我们具体假设，单一情节故事中英雄原型的展现主要带来一种结果（愉悦感），而嵌入式情节故事中英雄原型的展现主要带来一种我们称之为“实践智慧塑造”的结果：一种对自我的道德意义建构形式，可提升个人的实践智慧和审慎。论文的最后一部分讨论了英雄展现的宣泄性和实践智慧性结果如何促进品牌与消费者之间的心理联结，并促使消费者将其道德价值观与英雄角色特质所反映的价值观保持一致。本文分析的核心目标是对相当广泛的品牌故事视频中的叙事现象进行探索，最重要的是提供一个概念框架以及一种适用的工具，以分析这些品牌故事中的相关类别。本研究采用跨学科方法来研究当代不断发展的营销现象，将原型和英雄价值观的心理模型与叙事学中关于视角采择和故事结构的见解相结合。其贡献在于从叙事学角度系统地阐述了品牌视频故事中的各种叙事原型如何促进品牌与消费者关系的发展。
