VARIABLES PRESENT IN THE INTERPRETATION AND ACCEPTANCE OF ANIME NARRATIVE ELEMENTS IN SPANISH ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS

Since the 1980s, advertising in Spain has used anime characters to promote licensed products or products related to their commercial exploitation. However, despite the enormous growth in manga and anime consumption in recent years, there has been no corresponding growth in the use of anime narratives in advertising campaigns of products or services of brands outside the manganime universe. To this end, we aim to determine the elements that cause the disparity between the increase in anime consumption and its continual absence in advertising creativity in Spain, specifically, in advertising campaigns for products or services that are not directly related to anime series. An interpretive construction is proposed by means of a focus group with university students that allows us to determine their reactions to advertising campaigns from other countries that use anime narratives. Among other aspects, our results reveal the need to understand the narrative universe of anime, its characters and subtext. Similarly, we believe that there should be aesthetic and audiovisual coherence and shared values between anime and brand so that the public accepts it positively and not as an intrusive element. Finally, we define four main variables on which to design advertising campaigns based on anime narratives.