Relevance theory in environmental marketing: A multimodal analysis of eco-advertising

Abstract

The 2021 Nestlé (NESCAU) advertisement “Safira”, created by Ogilvy Brazil, is a campaign that contrasts the 20‑year journey of self‑discovery of a transgender person with the permanent and destructive nature of a single plastic straw in a coral reef. This article presents the interpretative process of this eco‑advertising commercial from the perspective of Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1995, 2015, 2025; Carston, 2002; Wilson and Sperber, 2012). This genre falls within a subset of “green advertising” in corporate communication, focusing on environmental sustainability to influence consumer perception. The data used in this study derive from descriptive and qualitative research. Our analysis has the following general objectives: (a) to examine whether Relevance Theory can effectively analyse the audiovisual genre; (b) to present an analysis using elements that support communication, such as sensory elements, which include visual (sight), auditory (hearing), tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), and gustatory (taste) modalities; contextual and spatial elements, encompassing time (chronemics), space and distance (proxemics), and silence as a meaningful communicative resource; and action and state elements, which involve higher‑level interpretations such as attitudes or illocutionary acts, as well as emotional states that shape meaning and interpretation. Based on these objectives, the research addresses the following questions: (a) Can eco‑advertising be effectively analysed through Relevance Theory? and (b) How can eco‑advertisements be examined using an extension of the communicative elements presented in this study? In this study, we understand these elements as being used in communication, while multimodality is defined here as the strategic combination of these diverse resources to create a richer, more comprehensive, and more cohesive communicative experience. The results confirm that Relevance Theory is a robust framework for analysing the audiovisual genre. This theory provides tools to analyse both explicit content and implicit, weak, or non‑propositional effects in visual and auditory messages. Action and emotional effects capture information about the attitudes and emotions of the speaker/writer in relation to the explanation they have communicated. We cannot claim to fully understand a speaker’s or writer’s message if we do not correctly understand the attitudes and emotions that he or she intends to convey. I claim, all communication is inherently multimodal.