The aim of this article is to advance current understandings of cross-media communication in advertising. The study is based on a sample of 80 television commercials and their announced websites, and the article is inspired by recent studies of cross-media advertising effectiveness as well as semiotic perspectives on multimodal analysis. The authors present three dimensions to be considered when examining multimodal connections between television commercials and websites: announcements, participants and address strategy. These dimensions are brought together in an analytical framework that can serve as inspiration for further research on cross-media communication in advertising and possibly in other types of communication.

Sound seems to be a neglected issue in the study of web ads. Web advertising is predominantly regarded as visual phenomena–commercial messages, as for instance banner ads that we watch, read, and eventually click on–but only rarely as something that we listen to. The present chapter presents an overview of the auditory dimensions in web advertising: Which kinds of sounds do we hear in web ads? What are the conditions and functions of sound in web ads? Moreover, the chapter proposes a theoretical framework in order to analyse the communicative functions of sound in web advertising. The main argument is that an understanding of the auditory dimensions in web advertising must include a reflection on the hypertextual settings of the web ad as well as a perspective on how users engage with web content.

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Showing what consumers think and like about products, services, or brands is a well-known communicative feature in advertising. This article explores the new ways in which consumer experience is represented in online communication. Facebook has developed a range of Social Plugins that can be added on external websites to generate traffic to Facebook (e.g., by showing what other users “like”). This article focuses on the display of profile pictures in Social Plugins located on brand and company websites. Within this context, the article approaches the display of profile pictures as a dynamic text feature in what will be considered “testimonial advertising.” Inspired by Goffman’s discussion of display in public and private pictures, the article examines new meanings of display by focusing on the textual mechanisms of the plugins. Two main types of arguments related to the display of profile pictures are identified: an interpersonal argument based on personal knowledge of the portrayed, and a crowd argument established by the piles of unknown faces. The article suggests these two arguments as important to the meaning potential of the Social Plugins’ profile pictures; yet, it also critically discusses the compiled pictures beyond social communication as a tendency of aestheticization .

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