Hearing the Tale of the Digital Age from Generation Z: Semiotic Analysis of Turkcell’s Digital Intelligence Advertisement Film

The Internet and mobile communication devices have a great place in the life of generation z. Therefore, generation z is also called as “generation i”. As digitalization has gained wide currency, generation z is to face some drawbacks and risks besides some positive developments. The Turkcell Digital Intelligence ad analyzed in this study in line with these projections also points out this issue. The ad done by Turkcell to introduce its Digital Intelligence Project, duly amalgamates storytelling, an important transmitter of oral culture and digital culture on a common ground. The Little Red Riding Hood, a world-famous fairy tale was chosen for the ad. In the ad, the little red riding hood was shown holding a tablet in her hand in the digitally adopted fairy tale, While the tablet seems to be a concrete indicator of digitalization, it also points out a distinguishing feature of generation z. In this respect, the ad film features a very rich data set in terms of semiotics. In this study, Turkcell Digital Intelligence ad is analyzed in terms of semiotics. The study aims to reveal overt and associational dimensions that indicate different processes at semantic level in the commercial, and to draw attention to bilayer nature of ad films. Certain scenes were chosen from the ad film, meanings engendered by signs were analyzed in line with this. The concepts of denotation and connotation coined by Roland Barthes, who is one of the founder theoretician of semiotics, functioned as loadstar for the study.