Speaker: Stephanie Janes @Stephanie_Janes
Affiliation: King’s College
Title: Empathy and Affective Brand Narratives in Immersive Promotional Media
Abstract: The proposed symposium presents the case studies that showcase and explore the ethnographic and experimental uses of narrative in Extended Reality (XR) as in reconstructing cultural landscape based on literature, building brands in affective ways, and exploring the migration of literary imaginaries through sound. The symposium addresses the role of epistemic and affective affordances of XR in creating and communicating new insight into narrative forms, whether in fiction or advertising. It seeks to provoke the discussion of how our approaches to each subject considered here could be transformed beyond the disciplinary boundaries.
To watch the video click on this link https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xxi07769jn6g9w2193bdx/IGEL-PRESENTATION-FINAL-S-Janes-1.mp4?rlkey=b3wq6yr92e0amo9zcb176i0j9&e=1&st=k9m228o5&dl=0
Long abstract
VR Marketing Strong claims are often made around the emotional and affective impact of storytelling using immersive media such as Virtual Reality (VR). VR storytelling continues to be discussed in terms of its ability to generate a sense of empathy, or an ability to convey the experiences of others more vividly (Milk 2015) Such claims are often made for the medium in the context of immersive journalism or non-fiction storytelling, although not without caveats and critiques (Sánchez Laws 2017; Rose 2018). A range of arts and humanities scholars have contested the ethics of such claims (Nakamura 2020; Schlemback & Clewer 2021) or offered alternative conceptualisations of the medium’s potential for similar kinds of engagement such as ‘radical compassion’ (Bollmer 2017). Few have specifically considered the implications of this form of narrative and affective experiences are when VR is used to in promotional contexts to tell brand stories. This paper seeks to explore findings from a British Academy Postdoctoral research fellowship looking at Immersive Promotional Media. It examines data from consumer focus groups and interviews with immersive content producers to better understand whether and how immersive promotional media (specifically VR experiences) can establish new kinds of affective narrative experiences and the impact of this on relationships between consumers, brands and marketers. In particular it considers case studies such as the Toms Virtual Giving Trip, which explicitly attempts to capitalise on VR’s experiential and affective qualities to tell a brand story in the vein of other ‘VR for Good’ content.