How short-form video formats reshape brand communication: narrative, vernacular, and algorithmic strategies on TikTok

The digital transformation of the media landscape and the rise of platform capitalism have fundamentally reshaped the conditions of brand communication. While traditional advertising relied on the controlled transmission of a message, TikTok constitutes a qualitatively different environment: sound-centric, algorithmically opaque, and built on imitation culture and participatory production of meaning. This thesis examines the communicative strategies brands use to cultivate an organic presence in the short-form video environment. The empirical basis is a multiple case study of four brands: Duolingo, Gymshark, Rare Beauty, and Netflix, drawing on a corpus of 40 videos published in 2025. The primary method is multimodal content analysis, organized around four analytical blocks: platform vernacular, multimodality, narrative compression, and brand communication. The analysis yields a typology of four adaptation strategies: vernacular immersion, register management, performed authenticity, and IP platformization. Across all four cases, explicit advertising is reserved for major product launches, while native content sustains an ongoing algorithmic presence. The study shows that strategic nativeness and fluency in platform vernacular have become essential conditions for effective brand communication on TikTok.