Advertising Campaign – Meaning, Examples, & Planning

Advertisements have their ways to make us buy the advertised products, don’t they? But imagine the impact that a whole series of advertisements, all sharing the same message or supporting the same cause could have on the consumers.

Wouldn’t that heighten your interest in the product or service that is being offered?

For instance, the #LikeAGirl campaign by Always promoted their product, while also creating awareness among the audience about the insecurities girls go through during their adolescence and showing that they cared about their target consumers. This personal connect made the advertising campaign a hit.

What Is An Advertising Campaign?

An advertising campaign is essentially just a series of similar advertisements by a company or a business that share the same core message, while also convincing consumers to purchase their products. Each advertisement may have a different theme, but eventually, they all support the same cause.

For instance, for the International Women’s Day in the year 2017, Levi’s brought the ‘#IShapeMyWorld’ campaign to India that celebrated different women who inspired the world. The advertising campaign spoke about the judgemental Indian society, body-shaming, diversity among women, gender and societal norms and most importantly, how these women rose above it all.

To create an advertising campaign it’s important to keep in mind the target audience and to understand how you can strike a chord with them to get them interested in your products or services.

How Can An Advertising Campaign Help Your Business?

It is always better to have a well-planned strategy to promote your brand, product or services, right? Advertising campaigns do that for you. Whether you offer a product or a service, choose to promote your brand online or offline—advertising campaigns help by guiding you through the process. They also help you gauge where your business stands in the market, by comparing your advertising campaigns with your competition, thereby also helping you assess the strengths and weaknesses in your products.

Advertising Campaign Planning

1. Analyse the situation– Gather information about your market so that your team and you have a general understanding about the marketing environment. This also provides your team to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your product, while also giving you an idea about your competition in the market, and their previous advertising campaigns.
2. Have an objective– Generating awareness for a new project, changing the existing image of your brand to increase anticipation from the consumers, conducting a trial and targeting the weaknesses of your competitors—all these are examples of activities that give your advertising campaign a positive boost.
3. Target consumers– When you classify your market in terms of consumers, instead of doing so in terms of products, your advertising campaigns have a much better impact on the target audience. Research and survey on the subconscious purchase behaviour of consumers can also help you to understand your consumers better.
4. Make a statement– Words matter as much as the concept of your advertising campaign. In fact, it is probably the most important step in planning your campaign. It is also the most challenging step as it requires condensing the entire concept of the advertising campaign into a single sentence. (‘Think small’- Volkswagen, ‘I’m lovin’ it’– McDonald’s etc)
5. Have a media strategy– There are times when mass-media is effective enough to get your advertising campaign trending among the consumers. But, in the day and age of social media, it is always better to have brand and campaign promotions across several social media platforms.
6. Set a budget– Everything, starting from media, paperwork, promotions, productions etc should be taken into consideration before you can set a budget for your advertising campaign.
7. Take an inventory– Making a note of the resources that are available with your company that can be used during the production of your advertising campaign. Talents and skills of staff members can also be noted down as they can also help assist the production of your campaign.
8. Stick to a theme– It is important to have a theme to your advertising campaign. Is the advertisement going to be nostalgic or emotional? All the advertisements in your advertising campaign should essentially stick to a core theme to maintain the integrity of the campaign, as well as to reinforce the message that you wish to send across to your consumers.

What Makes An Advertising Campaign Effective

Apart from the structure and planning, there are various other factors that can help you create an advertising campaign. Because there is so much more to things than just being technical, right?

1. Create a personal connect– Address the issues that you want to focus on using your advertising campaign. Showing people that you care often makes them more interested in the campaigns.
2. Keep it simple– Encompassing a very major issue through an advertising campaign while also trying to push your products to your consumers can be hard. But minimalism and simplicity are key aspects when it comes to advertising campaigns.
3. Be honest– With any advertising campaign, honesty and transparency are very important to consumers. Over-selling a product and claiming it to be something it is not decreases credibility, while honesty can attract more consumers to your campaign.
4. Repetition can be effective– While continuous repetition of the same message will cause your consumers to lose interest in your advertising campaign, creatively repeating the message to get your point across, like for instance, two advertisements sending across the same message as a part of the same advertising campaign makes consumers show interest in your product.
5. Identify the purpose of the campaign– What is your campaign about? Is it creating awareness? Is the campaign bringing a new product into the market, or is it bringing in a new use for an existing product? By identifying the purpose of your advertising campaign, you can connect better with your consumers.
6. Choose the right time for launching the campaign– Most advertising campaigns are carefully rolled out during a peak season. If a festive season is nearby, consumers will look for new and more attractive products in the market. At such a time, launching a new advertising campaign captures the attention of your consumers, making your campaign a success.

Advertising campaign examples

‘A Diamond is Forever’ by De Beers

Following the Great Depression, in the year 1948, when the diamond conglomerate De Beers faced decreasing sales, they came up with an interesting advertising campaign that pushed the idea to the consumers that engagements were best sealed with a diamond ring. The ‘A Diamond is Forever’ campaign popularized the concept of the traditional diamond engagement ring.

‘Get a Mac’ by Apple

In the year 2006, Apple launched its first ‘Get a Mac’ commercial in which two actors representing ‘Mac’ and ‘PC’ respectively have a conversation in which PC ends up embarrassing himself. By the end of the year, Apple had launched 19 commercials under the ‘Get a Mac’ campaign. This humorous, but aggressively competitive advertising campaign captivated the consumers immediately.

Bottom Line?

Sometimes, marketing campaigns are mistaken for advertising campaigns. The two have the same eventual goal—promoting their products through a series of advertisements. While advertising campaigns only relies on the communication channels, marketing campaigns everything related to the product to communicate the message. This includes the production, packaging, distribution, communication channels, and digital marketing channels etc.

Creating an advertising campaign is every bit of an art, as it is science. Every advertising campaign is different. Some run for a whole year, while some campaigns only run during the festive or peak seasons. Some are media based, some are product based and yet some others are based on the objectives. In spite of everything, advertising campaigns have a common goal—striking a chord with the consumers, and creating a true image of the brand in the market.

Go On, Tell Us What You Think!

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