The Infra-Thinness of Narrative in Advertising Discourse

 
 
 
Due to the importance of advertising in the contemporary world and the fiercely competitive market that has made brands struggle to outdo each other in attracting the attention of the audience to their products and services, also putting the audience in a position to face new visual experiences and, as a result, making them surprised when facing all kinds of advertisements is one of the important concerns of advertising team designers, it has always been necessary for designers to choose appropriate solutions in creative ways. Research in the field of advertising and finding advertising solutions also considering the interdisciplinary nature of advertising, identifying the hidden aspects of some approaches, and using them for studying in this field is necessary and the results are useful for designers. One of the approaches that can be used to investigate advertisements is narratology. The current research was conducted to identify the hidden aspects of this approach for advertising analysis and, as a result, extract advertising solutions through the study of one of the types of narrative. Narratology originally started with Propp's research. According to him, the basis of every narrative is the change from one state to another, which is called an event (Abbasi, 2013: 57). Greimas also considers actors and action to play a fundamental role in the process of generating meaning. According to him, the actor is "someone or something that performs an action or the action happens to him", thus the act of narration is revealed in the action pattern of the actors (ibid.: 69).
What has been conveyed is the basis of the definition of narrative in the Paris school of narratology from the point of view of Propp and Greimas, who consider the change in the process from the beginning to the end of the narrative and the action of the actors to be the principle. However, the narrative does not always have a linear process and is not accompanied by action. accordingly, in this research, we intend to deal with a type of narrative in advertising that does not follow the linear structure of classical narrative and change is not the basis of meaning production. Rather, the passion system replaces the action system, and meaning emerges after sense and perception (Greimas, 2018: 30). As a result of these two types of narratives, there are two types of classical and modern aesthetics in the narratives. In classical aesthetics, beauty is definite and time is eternal, perfection-oriented, and complete. In this type of aesthetics, beautiful is absolute and its audience is passive. But modern aesthetics are mixed with presence. Attending means facing a passion instead of being an actant. Presence is not something that can be acquired. Rather, it is formed in time (Greimas, 2018: 36). "Each presence is the creation of a moment that ceases to exist as soon as it is formed because every present immediately joins the past and leaves the aspect of being a flash to the time before it." In fact, these now shape the presence of a modern subject and create a new beauty system that can be called a poetics of infra-thinness. Therefore, in the current research, we will study the types of infra-thinness in narrative according to its characteristics, and to achieve the goals of the research, we will seek to answer the main question - How can the infra-thinness in narrative be observed in advertising discourses? - to the sub-questions. We answer below: 1. How is infra-thinness defined in the narrative? And how many types can it be divided into? 2. Are all types of infra-thinness observable in advertisements? 3. Is it possible to introduce various types of infra-thinness as advertising solutions and tricks?
This research is fundamental in terms of its purpose and has been carried out in the descriptive method of content analysis. It is also qualitative in terms of data analysis. The method of data collection was purposeful and according to the types of infra-thinness in narrative and its characteristics, they have been selected from foreign advertisements. The reason for using external samples is easier access to categorized examples on websites such as Ads of The Word and similar sites. In fact, by searching and viewing the archives of the sites, examples of all kinds of infra-thinness in the narrative have been found in the examples of foreign brand advertisements. In this research, explanations were given first about narratology and its types, and then concerning infra-thinness. and then, according to the types of infra-thinness, its examples in advertisements were examined to evaluate the types of infra-thinness for introduction as an advertising strategy.
The result of this research shows that there are five types of infra-thinness in a narrative, which are infra-thinness in process, enlargement of small elements, fragmentation of elements, metaphoric infra-thinness and Lepsos or Formal error can be divided. By explaining the types of infra-thinness in narration, we found that infra-thinness can be used in visual texts in addition to verbal texts. If we consider advertising design as a kind of visual narrative, then the modern narrative and, as a result, the infra-thinness in the modern aesthetic system can also happen in it and become a kind of advertising strategy to persuade the audience; As in the examined samples, these strategies were used well. When we pay attention to the infra-thinness features of the narrative process, we find that these features share common features with creative and effective advertising.
In a good advertising plan, the speed of the event and the surprise of the subject are important, which is symmetrical with the features of the first type of infra-thinness (process). Also, the loss of cognitive and reasoning function in relation to a narrative that is explained by uncountable time and zero place is a feature that can be observed in the infra-thinness of advertising narratives; Because the audience does not find an answer with logical reasoning in front of this time that has become zero, which is significant in natural conditions and is accompanied by displacement during the process. As a result, the audience is disarmed and loses its power and management in front of the events that happen in the advertisements and surrenders. According to this, the goals of advertising designers to control the mind of the audience are achieved by using this type of visual narration.
In relation to the second type of infra-thinness (enlargement of small elements), this type of narrative in advertising is one of the tricks of creative advertising; Because sometimes to advertise a product or service, it is necessary to magnify the elements that are not visible to the audience under normal conditions to activate the sensible–perceptive presence of the audience in the advertisement. According to the examination of samples of advertisements in which the second type of infra-thinness be seen, it can be concluded that the use of this solution is very helpful, especially when it is necessary to warn the audience of threats with multiple powers. Also, the third type of infra-thinness (fragmentation of elements) in advertising, can have an effective presence in cooperative advertising. In some examples, the fragmentation of advertising narratives sometimes leads to the fragmentation of the advertising media, and to realize the message of the advertisement, the audience is used to participate and remove the fragments. In addition, it can be understood that this solution has good capabilities for showing different parts of different narratives in one medium; Because some media, especially print media, are facing limitations for narration.
In the fourth type of infra-thinness that uses metaphorical forms, with the help of extratextual references, the audience's understanding of the advertising message takes a shorter time, and metaphor also helps to make messages that carry abstract concepts more concrete. This solution is very suitable for displaying numerical information in advertisements. Finally, the use of lapsus or rhetorical errors in advertising first confronts the audience with a cognitive error and then gives the audience a deeper understanding of the message of the advertisement. Also, Lapsus can be used as a solution for advertisements in which replacing, substituting, and removing image forms as an advertisement message is intended by designers. In general, we can conclude that all kinds of infra-thinness in advertising narratives can be a kind of advertising strategy and trick. In addition, infra-thinness is a way to achieve new meanings by paying attention to details rather than portraying generalities.