It will be in the “Talento con causa” (Talent with a cause) session, where local emerging talent will showcase this branded content for their university’s Suicide Prevention Plan to the advertising industry.
The VIII Edition of the APCP’s Advertising Film Production and Post-Production Activities will open a very special space for local emerging talent with the session “Talento con causa: El Vínculo and how advertising can save lives”, carried out in collaboration with the University of Málaga.
In line with this edition’s motto —”Where advertising and cinema meet”—, El Vínculo represents that exact point of convergence where fiction becomes a communication strategy with real impact. The mini-series was created as part of the University of Málaga’s Suicide Prevention Plan and has been promoted and directed by Professor Dr. Penélope Martín, who has led the project with the students from conceptualization to audiovisual execution.
Composed of seven mini-episodes, between two and three minutes long, each one is focused on a character and a reality linked to mental health: anxiety, gambling addiction, screen addiction, eating disorders, emotional avoidance, or difficulties in facing complex personal situations.
Throughout the episodes, the stories subtly intertwine in everyday campus spaces. The characters’ paths cross, they observe, and influence each other, revealing how, in apparently normalized environments, silences, warning signs, and opportunities for support can coexist. The result is a choral story that reflects university life from within and focuses on the importance of detecting, listening, and activating support networks.
Advertising with purpose, production with responsibility
Faced with the challenge of connecting with the student body, the team opted for the fictional mini-series format as a strategic tool, adopting codes typical of cinema, branded content, and contemporary advertising production to convey a complex message through emotion and identification.
The project has been entirely developed by students in the second, third, and fourth years of the Degree in Advertising and Public Relations, who have taken on all phases of the process: script creation, creative development, planning, filming, and final production. Four students have served as the pillars of organizational and creative development, working under real professional dynamics.
Beyond the technical challenge, the team has faced the responsibility of addressing a subject that directly affects their own environment with rigor and sensitivity. The initiative is also broadened with a transmedia content strategy —interviews, making of, and pieces for social media— that reinforces the narrative and facilitates access to the resources of the Prevention Plan.
With this session, the APCP highlights how advertising production, when aligned with a social cause, can become a creative engine and a tool for real impact. El Vínculo not only demonstrates the talent of new generations, but also that advertising, when it connects with cinema and with society, can contribute to saving lives.
