Referencias al medio ambiente en los mensajes publicitarios. Investigación de la publicidad en España entre 2006 y 2007

The present article sets out the approach and some of the conclusions gathered from the research project “The treatment of the Environment in traditional advertising” carried out within the framework of an agreement between The Ministry of the Environment and the University of Valladolid. The object of the study was to ascertain and analyse how the Environmental Crisis is transformed into signs and identifiable and intentional representations in advertisements. The research was carried out by taking over 1000 advertisements from the Infoadex database, which had been broadcast on television and radio or printed in daily and non-daily newspapers in Spain in the years 2006 and 2007. The advertising produced in this time frame and geographical area was selected by a group of experts and using an identifying features template that collated all adverts that had any reference to the environment. The filtered sample was analyzed using semiotic tools and through a sociological analysis model converted into a SPSS programme matrix of 110 variables on the representation of the environment in each of the 1398 advertisements examined. The data revealed the massive impact that the environment is having on advertising, not only in the traditional energy and automotive sectors, –where the least damage to the environment is regarded as a benefit–, but also in sectors such as food or household goods, where the environment had become an essential reference of creative strategy in more than 10% of cases. The study highlighted the profusion of terminology regarding the impact on the environment included in a somewhat vague manner in many of the adverts. The findings report was considered the driving force behind the decision of the Ministry of the Environment to sign an agreement with the Self-Regulation of Advertising Association. El presente artículo expone el planteamiento y algunas de las conclusiones del proyecto de investigación “Tratamiento del Medio Ambiente en la publicidad convencional” realizado en el marco de un convenio entre el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y la Universidad de Valladolid. El estudio tuvo como objetivo la constatación y análisis de cómo la Crisis ambiental se transforma en signos y representaciones identificables e intencionales en la Comunicación publicitaria. La investigación se realizó a partir de un banco de más de 1000 anuncios extraídos de la base Infoadex, emitidos en televisión, radio y prensa escrita diaria y no diaria, en el territorio es