Core idea: In the convergence era, brands diffuse advertising across hybrid forms (branded content, product placement, sponsored TV pods, brand blogs, shareable video, programmatic advertising, native advertising, etc.) as alternatives or extensions to traditional mass media campaigns.
Key theoretical lens: Genette’s theory of transtextuality and its extension in film/TV/media studies to frame advertising as both text and paratext that inscribes meaning around a brand.
Central claim: Advertising is not only a primary text but also a paratext that inflects the meaning of the implied primary text (the brand). Paratexts shape how primary texts are read and interpreted.
Why this matters: Paratexts illuminate how advertising, news, entertainment and information intertwine under media convergence, highlighting the iterative, ambiguous, participative and intertextual nature of contemporary brand communication.
Concrete illustration: Negative PR can arise when paratexts shift brand meaning (e.g., Dove racism controversy in late 2017 following a Facebook ad). Conversely, paratexts can reframe brands in more favorable ways (e.g., Burberry’s response to hooligan-related imagery by altering product presentation).
Non-hierarchical relationships: Paratexts can subordinate or redefine primary text; brands can be empty signifiers that continually produce signifieds through paratextual activity (Aronczyk, 2017).
Paratexts can exist independently of the primary text (e.g., fake news posts, lost ancient texts known via mediations) and, in turn, primary texts can only exist through paratexts.
Gray’s claim: Paratexts explain how a text creates meaning for consumers and for popular culture/society more broadly.
Convergence-specific claim: Paratexts connect advertising, news, entertainment and information (and sometimes mis-information) as they circulate across multiple platforms; they enable a shift from a text-centric view of advertising to a paratext-centric view.
Critical stance: While some argue that “the work” retains authority, the authors argue the paratextual setup highlights how brand stories are constituted through surrounding paratexts and how the boundary between text and world becomes porous.
Preview of content: The article introduces paratext theory, presents extended examples of paratextual advertising, outlines an analytical framework for paratextual advertising analysis, and discusses ethical/cultural implications.
Paratexts and their media: foundational concepts
Genette (2010) and Kristeva (1980) foundations: paratext is the text about the text and includes elements that govern how a work is interpreted.
Peritexts: paratexts that are physically inside the published work (title, subtitle, cover blurb, preface, endnotes, typography, illustrations).
Epitexts: texts about the text but exterior to it (reviews, critiques, press ads, interviews). They may include hypertexts and parodies.
Paratext = epitexts + peritexts; these may be public (publisher ads) or private (author’s letters, margin notes).
Pseudo-events (Boorstin): some epitexts are marketing devices (e.g., interviews) designed to generate coverage as news.
Genette’s definition of paratext emphasizes its threshold role between text and what lies outside it; it shapes pragmatics and strategy around the text.
Digital extension: Genette’s concepts extend to trailers, virals, identifications, interstitials in film/TV, and to digital advertising forms that frame interpretation.
Paratexts are quintessential for advertising; they cross traditional marketing categories and engage the full promotional mix.
Paratextuality in the convergence era: paratexts insert brands into news, entertainment and information media content, creating a “kinetic” interpretation environment for readers/viewers.
Epistemic note: paratexts often blur the boundary between advertising and PR (para-epitextual promotions), including brand-managed Wikipedia edits, brand-funded entertainment pieces, and native advertising that reads like independent journalism.
Advertising as paratext: implications and examples
Advertising texts are part of a wider ecosystem where paratexts modulate primary brand meanings.
Two non-hierarchical relationships: paratexts can subordinate a text yet also generate new reading strategies; sometimes paratexts disassemble the primacy of the brand message by foregrounding world-oriented meanings.
Transmedia vs paratext: in film, a primary text (the movie) is ontologically prior to its paratexts; in advertising, paratexts can erase formal brand realities (labour practices, supply chains) to fill space with metaphysical meanings.
Media convergence shifts the locus of advertising strategy from the brand text itself to the surrounding paratexts.
The growth of mobile-first consumption means all media can be accessed on smartphones, changing the balance of the promotional mix.
The authors contrast transmedia storytelling in movies (where paratexts extend but preserve the primary text) with advertising paratexts that often extend brand meaning beyond any fixed primary text.
Foundational advertising-literary connection: advertising as text has been analyzed through a literary lens (Stern, Brown, McQuarrie, Phillips, etc.), but a thorough paratextual approach had been uncommon in marketing literature prior to this work.
Implication: paratextual framing broadens the analytical lens to understand how brands are constituted through intertexts, intermedial references, and circulating paratexts.
Paratextual advertising practices: The Orlov phenomenon
Aleksandr Orlov: a CGI meerkat mascot for Comparethemarket.com; Russian-accented voice, a symbol of the brand’s account of value in price comparison.
Trajectory: Introduced in 2009 TV ads; by 2010, a mock autobiography Becoming a bestselling text in the UK (A Simples Life: my life and times).
Market impact: Orlov helped propel a price-comparison site to a multi-billion-pound public flotation (~£2 billion) within eight years, signaling how a paratextual figure can drive brand value.
Multi-platform expansion by 2017: Orlov family expanded into toys, online/offline games, Meerkovo setting, paratextual mini-movies, and video interviews; a parodic long-running TV soap opera with the brand as sponsor; cross-promotion with Colin Firth and Kingsman.
Intertextuality: Orlov’s storyworld blends literary genres (fantasy/folk-tale/fable) with Russian literature motifs (class, emigration, entrepreneurship) to create a rich, intertextual universe.
Mechanism of success: The paratextual strategy used literary intertexts and fabular animals to build a dynamic, evolving fable that audiences engage with beyond the core brand site; paratexts become the story itself rather than the website alone.
Audience engagement: Many consumers interact primarily through parasocial relationships with Orlov paratexts (meerkat characters, toys, online content).
Distinction from straightforward advertising: Orlov demonstrates a shift from a traditional sales pitch to entertainment-driven, intertextual branding that saturates multiple platforms.
Theoretical takeaway: Paratexts generate intertexts that unify brand meaning across media platforms and drive audience engagement beyond conventional ads.
Evolving paratextual advertising under convergence: forms and reach
Paratextual advertising as enabler: inserts brands into media content across digital platforms, increasing brand salience and engagement.
Role of digital video and social media: digital advertising outpacing TV growth; virals and shareable videos become important paratextual techniques; brands can produce, star in, or script sponsor such content.
Examples of hybrid forms:
Native advertising that resembles editorial content.
SEO and search advertising integrated with brand storytelling.
Brand-sponsored blogs and cross-platform product placements.