Ad Engagement Concept in Turkey: An Assessment of the Academy And Expert Perspectives

In this study which discussed the advertising engagement concept, thoughts for the concepts of ad specialists in the advertising field in Turkey were evaluated. The concept of advertising engagement is quite a new subject in the marketing literature which full consensus could not be created on. From this point of view, literature on the engagement as a general concept and advertising engagement as a specific concept were discussed in the first chapter of the study. In the research part, a qualitative study was designed to determine the approaches of the advertisers who are working in the advertising agencies and academicians who are working in the field of advertising in Turkey. In the scope of research, interviews were conducted with 15 experts and various findings were reached about how advertising engagement concept was tackled in Turkey. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed by descriptive analysis method. As a result of research, it was found that advertising experts approach advertising engagement as a multidimensional concept, see it as a process and have troubles about expression of the concept in Turkish. It is ascertained that advertisers who produce advertising implementations for traditional media and academicians who work in advertising field have similar opinions about the subject. On the other hand, advertisers who produce advertising implementations for digital medium have relatively different perspectives. While digital-based behaviors are an indicator of advertising engagement according to advertisers who work in digital field, the internal situation which experienced by the individual is an indicator of advertising engagement according to advertisers who work in the traditional field and academicians. Besides, it is found that digital advertisers describe the concept more transparently than traditional advertisers and academicians and they called it as “interaction”