Press emotional advocacy: how experiential events transform journalists into brand narrative co-creators

Abstract

This study explores experiential press events in the automotive industry as relational communication practices that organise emotional and professional dynamics between journalists and brand communication teams. The research adopts a mixed-methods design, combining semi-structured interviews with Chief Communication Officers of leading automotive brands in Spain and a qualitative survey of 53 specialist motoring journalists. The analysis shows that shared time, informal interaction, and memorable experiences support the development of professional trust and orient how journalists relate to brands across encounters. These affective dynamics inform the framing, tone, and narrative orientation of subsequent media coverage. Journalists situate this influence within ongoing professional relationships and the experiential logic of press events, where proximity, familiarity, and embodied interaction structure communicative. The findings contribute to research on media-corporate relations by conceptualising a form of emotional promotion in which affective ties generated through experiential communication practices participate in the co-construction of media narratives.