Advertising at the threshold: paratextual promotion in the era of media convergence

In the media convergence era, brands are embracing hybrid forms of advertising communication such as branded content, product placement and sponsored TV ‘pods’, brand blogs, shareable video, programmatic advertising, ‘native’ advertising and more, as alternatives to, and extensions of, traditional mass media advertising campaigns. In this article, we draw on Genette’s theory of transtextuality to reframe this phenomenon from a paratextual purview. We suggest that the analogy of the paratext articulates the iterative, ambiguous, participative and intertextual character of much contemporary brand communication. We describe extended examples of paratextual advertising and promotion that illustrate the fluid and mutually contingent relation of advertising text to paratext, and we outline an analytical framework for future research and practice

Imaginary futures: liminoid advertising and consumer identity

Purpose: To establish the theoretical and practical grounds for a newly recognised advertising appeal, the liminoid appeal, and point to the wider implications of this type of appeal for advertising practitioners and consumers. Design/approach: The paper integrates a theoretical review with a selective sample of case exemplars to illustrate the novelty, salience and contribution of the liminoid advertising appeal. Findings: The study finds that the liminoid appeal is a novel and under-recognised yet widely deployed advertising and branding approach that manifests in many differing creative executions, whilst clearly carrying great resonance for consumers, and can potentially have negative social implications. Research limitations: The empirical case examples are selective and few in number and a limited basis for generalisation. Practical implications: Advertising agencies and brand managers have been practicing liminoid appeals without a theoretically grounded label with which to better understand the underlying consumer motivations. Having this knowledge will enable brand professionals to generate insights that improve training, execution and targeting of creative strategies. Social implications: The liminoid appeal resonates powerfully with consumers because of its ostensibly liberatory and self-actualising potential, but on a social level the proliferation of such appeals could contribute to rising social disharmony and psychological distress. Originality/Value: The Liminoid advertising appeal is a new, theoretically grounded label for a well established yet hitherto poorly understood category of advertising appeal. The study contributes a novel and previously neglected source of insight to the practice of creative brand communication strategy, whilst also contributing to the development of anthropologically informed marketing and consumer research