Advertisements can be divided into two main groups as analytical and narrative advertisements. Analytical content of an advertisement includes features of products and it addresses to consumers' rationality. On the other hand narrative advertisements focus on to create a story around a brand and addresses to consumers' emotions. This study focuses on the type of narrative advertisement, its development and practices in recent years. The study begins with a general frame of advertising history, a discussion of the distinctions between narrative and analytic modes of processing and transformation of narrative advertising. Narrative advertisements will be inspecting with the terms of narrative 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. The term of narrative 3.0 is the main focus point of this study and it will be explained with the concepts of prosuming, user integration, viral, etc. At the end of the study, as a narrative 3.0 practice, Tru Blood: Revelation will be inspected.
TopIntroduction
The history of advertising can be defined as a stage for numerous strategies which have been created in order to convince individuals for a certain product needs. Creating an intensely competitive environment of developments in production technology, the emergence of new ways to send messages to consumers as a result of development in communication technology, besides the development of consumer awareness have led to a change and development in strategies in the field of advertising.
In the historical process, it can be said that advertising was born with trading, nevertheless there is a huge difference between the ads in the past and today. Advertising has been differed in the course of time. When examining today, advertising is an efficient sector which progressing a parallel development with social dynamics. Today, it is one of the most important weapons of marketing and it has become a very important sector in the world, not only in terms of practices but also its influence area.
Many factors have played a role in development of advertising. But, influnce area of advertising has extended because of discovery of the power of narration and narrative has proved its ability besides other factors. There are many studies that researching to effects of advertising narratives on consumers. The common ground of these studies is narration establishes an emotional bond between consumer and product / brand. And this bond provides purchasing of product / brand by consumer.
Narrative can be defined as creating stories, or rather, it is some kind of retelling a story. Events constitute stories –a story is sequence of events-, the narrative is retelling or recounting of these events which constitute story. Thus narrative has a fiction and it changes or shape the story (events, times, results, etc.). The narrative used in many areas like novels, films, serials, etc. And advertising is one of these areas.
Especially after 1945, number of advertising messages and channels increased. Developments in production and communication technologies brought about a fierce competiton, and besides, new communication skills needs for companies. Hereby the narrative got increasingly involved in advertising. Herein, there is contribution of structure of materialistic society and consumer culture. Existing of a large number of products of the same type on the market, and besides, a large number of advertising messages affected to society in mainly two ways. First, consumer culture came into existence and consuming became a hedonic act. Second, individuals - as consumers- became conscious and more sceptical about content of advertisements and real features of products.
At this point, narrative became more important to advertisers. İmportance of features like creativity, originality, persuasiveness were already discovered. But, compounding of these features around a story emerged major effects. Consumers found sections from their lives, solutions for their problems and storylines which speak to their emotions in these narratives. Undoubtly, narrative is not enough while it stands alone and consumers might prefer a clear information instead of a story or an expert instead of a storyteller. At this point, it can be said that advertisements were divided two main groups as narrative mode and analytic mode of advertising. But, it is a known fact that the narrative has increased the influence of advertising.
Importance of narrative advertising can be explained in this way. But, to explain the transformation of narrative advertising is important as describing the concept. Efficiency of narrative advertising has increased after 2. World War, therefore transformation process must be evaluated from this term. Because, before this process, mankind had lived two big world wars, an economic crisis in 1929, crisis and restructions in political fields, huge developments in production, transportation and communication technologies. Some kind of social relief, after these crisis and the other developments have triggered the consumption. Naturally, narrative advertising has found a backdrop to developing itself.