A Brand Storytelling Approach to COVID-19’s Terrorealization: Cartographing the Narrative Space of a Global Pandemic
Journal of Destination Marketing & Management (Vol.18, Dec 2020, pp. 1-10)
Posted: 27 Feb 2020 Last revised: 14 Sep 2020
Date Written: March 3, 2020
Abstract
This paper offers a brand storytelling, that is a narratological account of COVID-19 pandemic’s emergence phase. By adopting a fictional ontological standpoint, the virus’s deploying media story-world is identified with a process of narrative spacing. Subsequently, the brand’s personality is analyzed as a narrative place brand. The narrative model that is put forward aims at outlining the main episodes that make up the virus’s brand personality as process and structural components (actors, settings, actions, relationships). A series of deep or ontological metaphors are singled out as the core DNA of this place brand, by applying metaphorical modeling to the tropical articulation of COVID-19’s narrative. The virus’s kernel is identified with terror, as a menacing force that wipes out existing regimes of signification due to its uncertain motives, origins and operational mode. In this context, familiar urban spaces, cultural practices and intersubjective communications are redefined, repurposed and reprogrammed. This process is called terrorealization, as the desertification and metaphorical sublation of all prior territorial significations. This study contributes to the narrative sub-stream of place branding by approaching a globally relevant sociocultural phenomenon from a brand storytelling perspective.
Keywords: COVID-19, Place Branding, Brand Storytelling, Narratology, Metaphorical Modeling
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation