Using the Concept of “Social Distancing” in Advertising Designs: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility is one of the activities that goes beyond philanthropy, based on volunteerism in line with the responsibilities of enterprises towards society. This concept, which offers businesses the opportunity to look after and develop their brand image in the eyes of society, has become a necessity, not a choice, especially in today's world. In order to meet social expectations, the effectiveness of static and dynamic advertising messages implemented in all social benefit-based studies for human development such as environment, health and education is very important in terms of ensuring audience communication. In the second half of 2019, people were confined to homes and life came to a standstill all over the world in order to reduce and prevent the impact of the pandemic within the scope of the “New Type Corona Virus” (COVID-19) measures, which are from the sars-cov-2 coronavirus family, which is spreading rapidly globally starting from Wohan, Hubei Province, China. As a basic protection module for humanity against corona virus, it has incorporated the concept of social distancing into their lives in order to reduce the contact of staying at home and increasing hygiene, except in mandatory situations. During this extraordinary period, many brands on a global scale have included the concept of “social distance” in their advertising messages with the awareness of corporate social responsibility and have started to inform and educate the community about this issue by emphasizing the importance of the process. Within the scope of this research, advertising designs prepared by brands acting with corporate social responsibility awareness through the concept of social distancing during the Pandemic period were discussed and how the meaning structures behind the messages were created and transmitted. The research is limited to 3 (three) advertising designs determined by the 'judicial sampling' method (selective method). In the sample of the study, advertising narratives of brands in different sectors were explained in general framework and similar and different aspects of messages were uncovered by performing comparative analysis between messages in line with the findings obtained from the narratives. In this context, it was determined that the contrasts of “pessimism and optimism, hope and despair, happiness and unhappiness, death and life, strong and powerless, youth and old age, unity/togetherness and separation, struggle and defeat, nature and culture” were constructed as the main discourse.