Qualitative categorization for the design of strategic semiotic marketing in sustainable consumption: storytelling and university consumption

Abstract

The various efforts to stop environmental damage in the world must go beyond raising awareness and focusing on developing communicative content that generates actions and behavioral changes for individuals. In this work, the community made up of university students was used to identify qualitative analysis categories applicable in the development of strategies that promote actions that favor sustainable consumption. The objective was to define the type of strategies that could mean empathy and, therefore, effectiveness for sending messages that involve acting in favor of the environment. Phenomenology, pragmatism, symbolic interactionism and semiotic marketing were resorted to using in-depth interviews with subjects at the university stage as a methodological basis. The different codes that emanated to give rise to effective content in the process of sustainable actions were awareness, behavior, social interactions, impact, persuasion, selectivity, satisfaction of needs and coexistence. Based on this, it was proposed to develop stories that narrated messages through different pieces of storytelling as a viable option before the type of communicative content empathetic with the chosen consumer community, and the urgency of response required by individuals. It was concluded that high impact techniques succeed in persuading the receiving public to make action choices in favor of satisfying their needs without putting at risk the integrity of third parties or future generations.