Digital Video Advertising: Breakthrough or Extension of TV Advertising in the New Digital Media Landscape?

The aim of this paper is to shape the identity of digital video advertising in the new digital media landscape, focusing on whether and to what extent popular digital ads on social media are differentiated from traditional television ads in the context of the convergence of traditional and new electronic media. Content analysis was preferred for the study of popular advertising content in social media. In this respect, the differentiation of digital video advertising from its television counterpart is examined in terms of the properties and effects of the transmission medium itself on the advertising content and of the features of the digital advertising content itself. Out of the findings emerged that digital video advertising is still in a phase of adaptation/transition, consisting of only a potential breakthrough in the contemporary media environment, since it has not yet exhausted the possibilities offered by the internet and Web 2.0. Currently, digital advertising only partially incorporates and exploits the advantages of enriched, multimedia, interactive, and personalized content, characteristics that would potentially differentiate it to a greater extent from advertising shown in traditional media, especially television.