‘Foundation’ Story of Turkey’s İşbank and the Republic of Turkey: A Corporate Advertising Analysis Using Greimas’ Actantial Model and a Cultural Perspective
Selin Bitirim OkmeydanThis study aims to examine the basic signs of the corporate advertising theme ‘Foundation’ of Turkey’s İşbank according to its cultural perspective. Thus, a two-stage analysis was performed. First, a semiotic analysis using Greimas’ Actantial Model as a reference is employed, adapting the stages and steps of narrative analysis to the selected advertisement. This method was used to analyze the visual, written, and verbal codes of the corporate advertising, thus seeking to discover the hidden meanings on the surface from a deeper, more holistic perspective. At the second stage, corporate advertising is considered from the cultural perspective and analyzed under the headings of rituals, symbols, values, and heroes. This analysis reveals how the meaning embedded in corporate advertising was created in the form of storytelling. From these two stages of analysis, the findings obtained using these two methods indicate association between the bank and Republic of Turkey. It is recognized that the foundation story of Turkey’s İşbank is an allegory of the foundation of Republic of Turkey. At the second stage’s analysis, İşbank’s film advertisement was successful in conforming to the cultural perspective. Thus, a rich meaning was created by employing rituals, symbols, values, and heroes within the framework of storytelling from a cultural perspective.
Kurumsal Reklam Ekseninde Türkiye İş Bankası ve Cumhuriyetin ‘Kuruluş’ Hikâyesi: Kültürel Perspektif Bağlamında Greimas’ın Eyleyenler Modeli ile Çözümleme
Selin Bitirim OkmeydanBu çalışmanın amacı, Türkiye İş Bankası’nın 2019 yılında yayınladığı ‘Kuruluş’ temalı kurumsal reklamındaki temel göstergeleri hikâye anlatıcılığının kültürel perspektifine göre incelemektir. Bunun için iki aşamalı çözümleme yapılmış ve ilk olarak göstergebilimsel analizden yararlanılmıştır. Bu analiz yönteminde Greimas’ın hikâyelerin nasıl oluşturulduğunu açıklayan Eyleyenler Modeli referans alınmış ve anlatı izlencesinin evreleri ile aşamaları seçilen reklama uyarlanmıştır. Kurumsal reklamın görsel, yazılı ve sözel kodlarının çözümlemesinde bu modele dayanan göstergebilimsel analizin kullanılması ile çözümlemenin bütünsel şekilde tamamlanması ve yüzeyden derine gizli anlamların açığa çıkarılması hedeflenmiştir. İkinci aşamada ise kurumsal reklam, hikâye anlatıcılığının kültürel perspektifi doğrultusunda ritüeller, semboller, değerler ve kahramanlar başlıkları altında ayrı bir çözümlemeye tabi tutulmuştur. Gerçekleştirilen her iki çözümleme sonucunda kurumsal reklamda anlamın hikâye anlatıcılığına göre nasıl üretildiği ortaya çıkarılmıştır. İlk aşamada kullanılan çözümleme yöntemine göre ulaşılan bulgular, banka ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti arasındaki özdeşime işaret etmiştir. Türkiye İş Bankası’nın kuruluş hikâyesinin, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin kuruluşunun alegorisi olduğu görülmüştür. İkinci aşamadaki çözümleme yönteminde, kurumsal reklamın kültürel perspektife uygun geliştiği saptanmıştır. Buna göre kurumsal reklamda ritüellere, sembollere, değerlere ve kahramanlara yer verilerek kültürel perspektifli hikâye anlatıcılığı çerçevesinde zengin bir anlam üretildiği izlenmiştir.
The positive effects of storytelling on human beings have been acknowledged by experts in public relations, marketing, and advertising alike, and affective stories have become a popular method for establishing strong emotional ties with the target groups of communication activities. Storytelling is one of the methods used in corporate advertising to personalize the messages transmitted to the public. This approach considerably increases the persuasiveness of a brand, thus providing an opportunity to establish a deeper and more intensive interaction. Corporate advertising practitioners who place the past values and future vision of the enterprise on common ground with the attending cultural perspective through the most appropriate stories in an emotional and effective language are expected to be successful.
This study aims to focus on the use of storytelling in corporate advertising and to examine the principal elements of storytelling from a cultural perspective through the example of the film advertisement titled “Foundation” of Turkey’s İşbank, which was published in 2019. This analysis aimed to discover how meaning is created through storytelling and the means by which the existing cultural information is converted into emotional messages. According to “Banking 500 2019,” an annual report of the 500 most powerful banks in the world by Brand Finance, an international institution measuring the brand value of enterprises, Turkey’s İşbank was listed as “one of the 10 most powerful brands in the world.” The bank identified its foundation with that of the Republic of Turkey, going back to the first years of the Republic as shown in the corporate advertising film entitled “Foundation,” thereby by creating a cultural connection through the story.
Because it is a successful and appropriate example of storytelling, according to “Banking 500 2019,” the corporate advertising film of Turkey’s İşbank was selected as the subject of research for this study. The film was analyzed in two stages. In the first stage, semiotic narrative analysis uses Greimas’ (1983) Actantial Model to interpret İşbank’s “Foundation” film in a way that enables the discovery of hidden meanings through visual, verbal, and written codes. In the second stage, corporate advertising is analyzed from a cultural perspective. In this analysis, the attributes of rituals, symbols, values, and heroes are used, as included in the context of Seyfi’s (2016) storytelling. The analysis of the integrity of the storytelling method observed in corporate advertising is only possible by considering the cultural perspective, as corporate advertising acts primarily as a culture translator, transmitter, and transferor and finds its meaning within the culture. More than one analytical method is used for discovering the means and purpose of creation, from the outer surface to the deep inner meaning. In doing so, we attempt to define how İşbank’s ‘Foundation’ creates meaning through storytelling and cultural perspective.
According to the analyses applied, İşbank’s corporate advertising film uses an emotional tone that was created in conformation with the concept of storytelling. Both cultural and national identification is constituted between the founding of the Republic of Turkey and the bank, in view of the results of the semiotic analysis. Accordingly, the “Foundation” story of Turkey’s İşbank is in fact an allegory of the foundation of Republic of Turkey. The second stage of the analysis, which includes rituals, symbols, values, and heroes, reveals that the advertising film is quite rich in cultural perspective. The narrative of corporate advertising has a quality conforming to the cultural perspective of storytelling.
