Transmedia Narratives in Advertising An analysis of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Despite the countless number of studies conducted over the years on transmedia narratives and its distinct story worlds, there is a distinct gap in research in combining transmedia narratives with advertising. More so, in the advertising for Blockbuster movies. This research analysed these transmedia advertising narratives in Blockbuster movies in the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the subject of countless transmedia studies due to the multi-platform nature of its story world universe. The main aim of this research was to understand whether the advertising side of the story world would exhibit a transmedia narrative storyline, that mirrored its fictional counterpart. The PESO framework was used to segregate and analyse data in an organized manner. This was an unconventional data collection method, however it was necessary as the nature of transmedia requires a multiple platform analysis. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the advertisements and extract meaning using the directed content analysis approach. Main categories derived from theory helped uncover patterns present in the advertising data. The main findings of the data concluded that there are transmedia narrative storylines present in Marvel’s Blockbuster movie advertising in recent years. Furthermore, that the transmedia narrative storylines in advertising are a recent phenomenon as Blockbuster movie advertisements analysed from previous years did not yield the same results as recently released movies. The results of the study concluded that transmedia advertising narratives have become a separate story world with recent movies, having a distinct universe and narratives of their own.