Innovation and Manipulation of Iconization in Modern Advertising: An Analysis of Facebook’s Mercedes Benz International Middle East Page

Abstract

Corporate symbols and icons carry meanings, messages, and intentions of the respective institutions, businesses, and trademark owners. Such ionic branding helps establish themes and senses not only among the relevant preceptors, but also among the others. Drawing on this ground, this paper, accordingly, sheds light on online icon-based advertising with a special emphasis on the Mercedes Benz International Middle East page on Facebook. The aim is to find out how online advertising is processed in modern digital technologies and how marketization is purportedly manipulated to address this concern.  Modern advertising technologies shape the new forms of popularization and dissemination though signs, symbols, and brands. To do so, a sample of the Mercedes Benz International Middle East ads posted in 2022 on the Facebook page were gathered, identified, and analyzed. The paper finds that the globally renowned auto maker relied heavily on design-specific features in the ad highlights. The company, among different other aspects, featured part making, design concepts, and graphic transformation as prolific of the products. The company page managed to pride auto parts through symbols, logos, icons, and graphs, and therefore, the optimum marketization of different products. Branding, as a key element in this company ads, has been commercialized to represent the iconic status of the company as a classic auto maker, in addition to proliferate the other sub-editions including AMG, EQS, GLS, GLC, GLB models. This has made an important distinction between iconicity and symbolism.