Anatomy of the Proto-Influencer: Exploring the Pre-Digital Influencer Marketing and Sales Funnel Relationship in Yüz Numaralı Adam

Vollständiger Abstract

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The aim of this study is to analyze how Yüz Numaralı Adam anticipates and critically reflects the mechanisms of persuasion, mediated influence, and consumer behavior that underpin modern influencer marketing practices, by employing the conceptual frameworks of influencer marketing and the sales funnel model. The study employs a qualitative thematic analysis. The findings reveal that the protagonist, Şaban, functions as a “proto-influencer,” whose trajectory from an ordinary citizen to an advertising icon anticipates the logic of credibility, authenticity, and parasocial relationships that drive digital influencer culture today. The application of the sales funnel model exposes how the film satirizes the sequential process of consumer persuasion. Moreover, the film critiques the commodification of selfhood and dramatizes the fragility of trust. When the defective products lead to consumer disillusionment, the film models the reversal of the sales funnel via negative word-of-mouth. Şaban’s eventual ethical resistance and public confession highlight that moral accountability is the most precarious yet redemptive aspect of the influence economy. Ultimately, the film warns that persuasion is relational and fragile; when authenticity is commodified and trust is betrayed, ethical reflexivity retains the only sustainable foundation for credibility and long-term engagement.