The role of transmedia storytelling strategy to audience participation and interaction in advertising campaigns: The Barbie example

There have been numerous changes in the media field since the day when the internet and interaction in this context started to become one of the main actors in the marketing world with Web 2.0 technologies. Digital advertising media have been added to traditional advertising media, and the number of these digital media continues to increase every day. The issue of which of these advertising media will be included in a brand's advertising campaign and the difficulty of delivering the right message to the right target audience among advertising pollution are among the biggest problems experienced in today's advertising. Therefore, in order to overcome these difficulties, attract the attention of consumers and maintain continuous communication with them, one of the most frequently used methods by advertisers has become the transmedia storytelling strategy. In this context, this research aims to determine how advertising contents are shaped within the framework of transmedia storytelling strategy and whether interaction and audience participation in this context vary between channels. In this regard, the research universe of this thesis includes all transmedia advertising campaigns; the sample was determined as the advertising campaign of the Barbie movie produced by Mattel. The advertising campaign of the Barbie movie, which is the sample of the research, was examined with narrative analysis and case study methods within the framework of Henry Jenkins' 7 transmedia principles. As a result of the research in the advertising campaigns carried out with the transmedia storytelling strategy, it was concluded that the narrative elements in the film were also used in the advertisements, audience participation and interaction took place in campaign, and these occurred differently in each medium. Keywords: Advertising Strategy, Transmedia Storytelling Strategy, Transmedia, Transmedia Storytelling in Advertising, Interaction, Audience Engagement, Digital Storytelling, Barbie, Narrative Analysis