Advertising campaign - What is it? types, process, examples, and more

Advertising campaign - What is it? types, process, examples, and more
Posted on 02-03-2022

Advertising campaign

A strategic process that uses different means of communication to get a message to the target audience.

What is an advertising campaign?

An advertising campaign is a strategic marketing process that uses different media to deliver a message to the target audience.

Thus, it is a set of creative efforts, carried out by operational marketing, which seeks to generate behavior in the receiver of the advertising message, through persuasion.

The objective of the message may be, for example, to attract new customers or reposition the brand through associations of certain values ​​and feelings.

Types of advertising campaigns

It is said that the 3 purposes of advertising are to inform, persuade and remind. To do so, there are different types of campaigns that are classified as follows.

Depending on the nature of the product

The advertising campaigns that are classified according to the nature of the product can be:

  • Propaganda: that dissemination of information, messages or political positions in the face of certain events, which seek to make the receiver act in a certain way. The most representative examples have to do with advertisements that call to vote for a political candidate or set positions on equal marriage or legal abortion.
  • Social or civic: the objective of these campaigns is to achieve a change of attitude in citizens, such as improving their consumption habits, promoting care for the environment, etc. Like propaganda, it does not constitute commercial advertising but seeks to modify behavior or an attitude in the population.
  • Institutional: this type of campaign seeks to forge a good image of the company in society, for commercial purposes. Promotions are often accompanied by support for social causes, such as the fight against AIDS or cancer.
  • Industrial: are those carried out by companies in a certain industrial sector in order to jointly promote their products or services. For example, when the wine industry (wine production) promotes its consumption throughout society.
  • Co-branding: co-branding campaigns are carried out between 2 companies whose products or services are complementary to each other. For example, the Runtastic application, which allows personal recording and analysis of sports activities, has carried out campaigns together with Adidas (the German sports equipment multinational) to build loyalty and generate new customers.
  • Sponsorship: when a company supports the organization of an event, the performance of an activity, or a person who is dedicated to something in particular (athlete, expert, etc.). Through this type of campaign, the company achieves visibility in different national and international media.
  • Product: they are carried out to publicize a new product or service (launch campaign) or to strengthen or maintain the place it already has in the mind of the consumer. When a brand promotes several of its products in the same advertisement, it is called an umbrella campaign.

According to the life cycle

The advertising campaigns that are classified according to the life cycle can be:

  • Expectation: those that seek to arouse curiosity before the launch of a certain product or service. They usually don't say much, just enough to spark interest and a desire to want to know more about the brand.
  • Launch: these campaigns announce the release of a new product or service. Large sums are usually invested to cover the largest number of communication channels simultaneously.
  • Support or Maintenance: they are carried out to improve the market positioning of products that already have a presence in it. These campaigns seek to maintain awareness of a brand that has already been on the market long enough.
  • Reactivation: they seek to improve the current situation of the product or service, either because their sales have decreased or because it is a good time to do so, given that there are important seasons or events that will enhance the product or service.
  • Relaunch: they are usually carried out when some characteristic of the product or service changes, such as the design of the logo, the packaging, when new functionality is presented, etc.
  • Strong sales: through this type of campaign, the company seeks to generate profits in the very short term, through a strong increase in sales. Promotional messages such as: «offer or promo of the day», «2 x 1», «50% discount on the second unit» are some callers that arouse the interest of the consumer to acquire the company's products or services.

Process of creating an advertising campaign

All advertising campaigns contain a series of steps that must be carried out to guarantee their success:

  1. Description of the product or service: the first step is to know in detail what is intended to be promoted. It is necessary for the company to share with the advertising agency technical details, the history of the product or service, data of the competition, and any information that helps to design an efficient advertising campaign.
  2. Set the objectives: the marketing objectives must be clear to use the type of campaign that best suits them. Is it intended to increase the frequency of purchase? Report any functionality of the product? Persuade the public to acquire it? For this, it will be essential to analyze the prior knowledge that consumers have about the company's product or service, in order to determine the communication efforts that will be required.
  3. Definition of the target audience: Once the marketing objectives are understood, the next step is to communicate the product or service to the correct audience, that consumer profile for which the value proposition was created, and which has a series of variables that define it: income level, age, gender, educational level, purchasing habits, etc.
  4. Scope of the campaign: the geographical dimension of the advertising must be established, of the local, regional, national or international type.
  5. Message: This step constitutes the true essence of the advertising campaign. Its content, structure, and format will be decisive in the success of the campaign. The message must be in perfect harmony with the defined target audience, generating the response that is intended by the consumer.
  6. Media plan: these are the online and offline channels through which the message will be transmitted, such as social networks, video advertising, mailing, billboards on public roads, etc.
  7. Estimated budget: the total amount allocated for the campaign will condition its scope, so the investment to be made in each medium defined in the previous point will have to be defined.
  8. Measurement of results: during the execution and once the campaign is finished, a comparative analysis between the projected and actual objectives must be carried out; in order to study the deviations, the effectiveness of the advertising message, the conversion rate in sales, the visualization of impressions in social networks, etc.

Advertising campaign example

Here is an advertising example from a world-renowned company:

In June 2020, the famous beverage company Coca-Cola launched an institutional maintenance advertising campaign, through a series of videos made in different countries, whose emotional message was intended to emphasize the importance of affective bonds in times of the pandemic. of the COVID-19 that plagues the world.

 

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