Creative Advertisements: Narrative Strategies

Abstract

This research article aims to analyse the narrative strategies used by 20 creative advertisements that have garnered over five million viewers and were broadcast via mass communication and social media between 2011 and 2023. Literary analysis concepts, theories, and narrative theory are applied to analyse their content and language. The findings identify seven narrative strategies: 1) narrating by voice and motion pictures; 2) narrating various perspectives; 3) maintaining narrative continuity according to the planned plot; 4) narrating through characters and conversations; 5) narrating through creating complexes and conflicts; 6) narrating by enhancing elements such as colours, lighting, settings, and surroundings; and 7) narrating through emphasising the essence to highlight the core of the story. These seven narrative strategies share causal relationships and effectively convey meanings aligned with their objectives of persuading social changes, both in terms of product popularity and social creativity.