Web-Series Ads as a New Marketing Media: Toward a Commercial-Independent Digital Integration Model

Abstract

This study presents a new type of advertisement—web-series ads. This undiscussed form of advertising is unique, as it presents an independent digital cultural field. By examining the main structural and narrative features of web-series ads and consumers’ responses, this research presents an integration model which explains how advertisements, as a commercial system, integrate into an independent new media system. Using thematic, narrative–structural, and textual analysis methods, this research shows how marketers convey messaging by introducing a free-from-constraints new online advertising media type. The use of polysystem theory offers a new theoretical perspective to media research and explains the findings.