Transformation of a new genre of advertising on the internet: Viral advertising in e-commerce sector

In recent years, rapid developments on information and communication technologies has been experienced. When it is examined in the way of communication discipline, it can be said that invention of the internet and increasing use of it has brung a new dimension to communication and marketing. Since the internet was opened to commercial use in 1991, e-commerce has transformed the traditional definition of "market" into a "virtual" one and has brung along new concepts like "virtual marketing mix". The fact that there has been a possibility of reaching consumers on the internet has ensured the development of online advertising by transforming the internet into a new advertising medium. One of these new advertising genres is viral advertising. In this thesis, viral advertising practices of e-commerce organisations operating in Turkey have been analysed in terms of their content and concept features by using semiotic analysis. Research axes used in this thesis are actors of advertising (indentity of the advertiser, advertising agency, media, target audience), commercial face, language of the advertisement, resolotion of the advertising video, time control on the advertisement, commercial bumper and title of the video, whether the advertising appears in other forms of media, spoof videos and evaluation of the advertisement in terms of the viral diffusion elements. Viral advertisements included in this research has been analysed according to research axes mentioned above. Thus it has been tried to find out what the content and concept features of the viral advertisements are.