A semiotic analysis of advertisements published during the COVID-19 pandemic

Advertisements are important for brands to communicate with consumers and create a positive image of the brand. With the influence of commercials, people may tend towards a certain behavior or form attitudes towards the product or service in question. Advertisements function as a communication tool that establishes a relationship between the consumer and the product, brand or company, acts in accordance with social norms and affects the consumer's mind directly through visual elements. Today, it is seen that commercial organizations care about social and global events that affect their target audiences and show this interest in various ways. In this direction, commercial organizations are also turning to activities similar to the social marketing activities carried out by non-profit organizations in order to contribute to society. It is seen that companies try to be beneficial to the society by conducting voluntary activities related to social advertising, which is one of the components of social marketing. In this way, companies are not separated from social events, and by intertwining their brands with society, they maintain their memorability and strengthen their positive image. The Covid-19 pandemic, which also affected Turkey as of March 2020, has caused changes in many sectors. The global pandemic has brought about a period in which the functioning of the world has slowed down and people's perspective has changed. Companies have also preferred to carry out corporate promotion activities in accordance with this new order. The pioneer of corporate promotional activities carried out by companies is usually commercials. It is curious how companies/brands follow a path in their advertisements in this period. Within the scope of the study, it is aimed to analyze the commercials focusing on the Covid-19 pandemic and released in Turkey. Within the scope of the study, television commercials of companies selected from the food, beverage, information and communication and banking sectors were analyzed using semiotic analysis, a qualitative method. It was observed that the companies tried to raise awareness about social distancing, masks and stay-at-home measures to protect against the Covid-19 pandemic in their advertisements. During the pandemic period, companies called for overcoming the crisis together by giving consumers hope and confidence for the future in their advertisements with uplifting content, emotional bonding and social solidarity messages.