The Encounter of Cinema and Advertising on Digital Platforms: A Netnographic Analysis of YouTube Videos

The relationship between cinema and advertising has increasingly evolved into a hybrid field of production in which aesthetic narration, emotional engagement, and persuasive practices intersect within modern visual culture. This study examines how the relationship between cinema and advertising is constructed on digital platforms and how YouTube users interpret and make sense of such advertisements through a netnographic approach. The research aims to show that viewers do not perceive advertisements produced with cinematic aesthetics as conventional promotional content but rather position them as short films, emotional narratives, and cultural representations. The study sample comprises five advertising videos published on YouTube between 2021 and 2025 that generated high levels of interaction: Istanbul: Love of the Continents, Coca-Cola Masterpiece, #BırakmayızSeni, Karneni Göster Kitabını Al, and Türkiye’s Wings Turkish Airlines. User comments posted on these videos between September and December 2025 were examined, and audience discourses were analyzed thematically. The findings indicate that the advertisements are interpreted along the axes of cinematic storytelling, emotional intensity, national identity, collective memory, and artistic production. In particular, it is noteworthy that users frequently avoid labeling these videos as advertisements, instead describing them as film, short film, or a cinematic experience. Overall, the study demonstrates that YouTube’s comment culture provides a participatory meaning-making space that legitimizes, amplifies, and reproduces the cinematic transformation of advertising, revealing how advertising on digital platforms evolves into an aesthetic and cultural narrative form.