Presence Effects in Advertising Films: the music we (see and) hear in “Nosso Jeito de Cuidar”

Abstract

This article analyzes the advertising film "Nosso Jeito de Cuidar" (Our Way of Caring) by Unimed Grande Florianópolis, a piece that makes sensitive use of music and image to portray hospital routine. The research seeks to understand how the film was produced and proposes, through Audiovisual Materiality Analysis, to examine the effects of presence (Gumbrecht, 2010) that it activates. In-depth interviews were conducted with the campaign's creator, Eurides Terence; with the musician who performed the soundtrack, Jefté Salles; and with the commercial and marketing manager of Unimed Grande Florianópolis at the time, Ricieri Ramos. The central question guiding the work is: in what ways does the articulation between sound and image in the advertising film foster the production of presence, making symbolic values such as “care” tangible? The study expands the academic debate on regional advertising and highlights music in the relationship between listening (Zumthor, 2007) and audiovision (Chion, 2008). The choice of the song “1+1=2” proved effective in communicating the cooperative’s new positioning and its emphasis on caring for people, achieving the goal of conveying the message in a sensitive and memorable way.