Advertising Campaigns

Advertising campaigns are strategic efforts by companies or organizations to promote a product, service, or brand to a target audience. They typically encompass a series of coordinated marketing communication activities, which may include television and radio ads, social media promotions, print advertisements, and public relations efforts. The primary goal of an advertising campaign is to create awareness, generate interest, and ultimately drive sales or engagement.

Effective campaigns are grounded in thorough market research to understand consumer behavior and preferences, allowing for tailored messaging that resonates with diverse audiences. Additionally, campaigns often leverage creative concepts and memorable visuals to capture attention and encourage sharing among consumers. Timing, placement, and frequency of advertisements are also critical factors that can significantly influence the success of a campaign.

Measuring the impact of an advertising campaign involves analyzing metrics such as reach, engagement, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI). By studying these outcomes, businesses can refine their strategies and improve future campaigns. Overall, advertising campaigns play a vital role in the competitive landscape, helping brands connect with potential customers in meaningful ways.

Published in: 2021

By: Tetteh, Vanessa A.

Subject Terms

Advertising Campaigns

Abstract

An advertising campaign is a series of messages on the same idea and theme that constitute consistent, seamless, one-voice Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). The global advertising industry is a large and growing one that uses virtually every type of media and promotional opportunity available. Advertising campaigns require a thorough process, from the setting of objectives to campaign evaluation. Although most advertising is for commercial purposes, an increasing amount of advertising campaigns are designed to serve noncommercial purposes. Advertising itself can be a controversial activity that many have come to view as detrimental to society, and as such, industry regulation has become necessary.

Overview

Advertising is the paid promotion of a cause, idea, opinion, product, or service by an identified sponsor attempting to inform or persuade a particular target audience through a nonpersonal medium. Advertising also refers to the profession and the business of designing and writing advertisements, along with any related techniques and practices. An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages on the same idea and theme that constitutes consistent, seamless, one-voice Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). As a marketing tool, advertising can be combined with other marketing tools, such as sales promotions, branding, personal selling, publicity, and public relations.

Advertising has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in modern society, where a single individual can be bombarded with thousands of advertising messages each day. Industry, companies, nonprofit organizations, and individuals all use advertising media such as the print media, broadcast media, electronic media, direct mail, logos on products, promotional items, product placement on television shows and in films, and outdoor advertising (via wall paintings, billboards, posters, automobiles, subway trains, skywriting, bus stop benches, town criers, roof mounts, and so on). These media are used to communicate messages that are meant to influence the behavior and/or thought patterns of a specific target audience.

Advertising expenditure in the United States alone exceeded $192 billion in 2016, while worldwide advertising spending surpassed $542.55 billion in 2016 (eMarketer, 2016). It is not surprising, therefore, that advertising is the most important source of income for many of the world's media organizations today.

The firms that generate advertising are mainly profit-making corporations, with the largest groups being retailers, the automotive industry, and financial services (eMarketer, 2015).

Advertising can be traced back to ancient times, when means such as rock paintings, wall paintings, and human criers were used to advertise events and products for sale. In those days, political campaign displays, papyrus wall posters, and even papyrus lost-and-found announcements were in use. As the centuries progressed, technological advances made more media available for advertising. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for instance, the development of printing paved the way for handbill advertising. Subsequently, in the seventeenth century, newspaper advertisements began. As national economies grew toward the end of the nineteenth century, advertising grew significantly, to the extent that this period is said to have marked the beginning of modern advertising.

Other forms of advertising were developed, such as classified advertising and mail-order advertising. A major milestone was achieved in the late 1880s, when manufacturers began to advertise their own branded products themselves, after taking packaging and branding away from the wholesalers.

The advertising agency sector also underwent its own developmental changes. Initially, the first advertising agencies were established in the nineteenth century to serve as brokers for newspaper advertising space, but by the early twentieth century, the advertising agencies were handling the production of advertising messages, including, among others, copy and artwork. As the number of advertising agencies grew, more advancements were made in such areas as copywriting and research.

Thanks to the new technology of broadcasting, radio advertising was thriving by 1930, and television advertising was also introduced in the 1950s. Cable and satellite television were introduced between the late 1980s and early 1990s, carrying new broadcasting channels wholly devoted to advertising.

Internet advertising bloomed in the 1990s, creating novel advertising opportunities in various forms, such as popup, flash, banner, advergaming, email advertisements, embedded advertising, and so on. In the twenty-first century, Internet advertising has been the fastest-growing form of advertising and is projected to surpass television commercials in terms of ad spending in 2017 (eMarketer, 2016). Interactive advertising allows advertising to be tailored to individuals' own interests. Other recent advertising innovations include guerrilla promotions, which employ sensational and unusual tactics such as expensive product giveaways and staged encounters in public places. As the Internet has evolved, advertising has increasingly been dotted with niche and targeted advertisements. Consumers are increasingly able to choose which advertisements they come into contact with, and advertisers are increasingly relying on data mining to target very specific audiences.

Further Insights

The Advertising Campaign Process. The advertising campaign process consists of five main stages. These are:

Objective setting.
Budget preparation.
Selection of the right advertising approach.
Copy testing.
Evaluation of the campaign's effectiveness.

Objective. Every advertising campaign must have an objective, stating what the campaign should accomplish with specific customers over a particular time frame, and there must also be a campaign theme, which is the central message to be communicated through the campaign.

The advertising objective is usually selected on the basis of a product's stage in its life cycle. It should address four key points:

The basic message to be delivered.
The target audience to whom the message is to be delivered.
The intended effect of the advertising campaign.
The specific criteria to be used later on to measure the campaign's effectiveness.

Types of Campaigns. There are various types of advertising campaigns, each with its unique objective. They include the following:

Informational Advertising Campaigns: These are used to introduce a new cause, idea, product, or service, placing emphasis on promoting its name, benefits, and possible uses.
Trial Advertising Campaigns: These are used to encourage customers to make an initial purchase of a new product.
Persuasive Advertising Campaigns: These are used to generate sales within a particular target market after a product has already been introduced to the public.
Continuity Advertising Campaigns: These are used to keep existing customers using a particular product, building customer loyalty by typically providing new information about a product.
Brand Switching Advertising Campaigns: These are used to convince customers to switch from competitors' brands, usually by comparing price or quality.
Comparative Advertising Campaigns: These are used to directly or indirectly compare one brand with one or more of its competitors.
Reminder Advertising Campaigns: These are used to remind customers and maintain awareness of products that have entered the mature stage of the product life cycle.
Switchback Advertising Campaigns: These are used to get back former customers, by highlighting new product features, price reductions, or other important information.
Advocacy Advertising Campaigns: These are used to persuade the public on a specific economic, political, or social issue.
Cooperative Advertising Campaigns: These are used to enable manufacturers and distributors to share advertising costs.
Institutional Advertising Campaigns: These are used to promote the benefits, concept, idea, or philosophy of a particular industry, in a fashion similar to public relations.
Product Advertising Campaigns: These are simply used to promote specific products to the general public.

Advertising Campaign Budget. Once the advertising objective is selected, the advertiser must set an advertising budget for each product. The budget-setting stage is another key step in the advertising campaign process, since the campaign budget is significantly related to the campaign's success. However, an advertiser seeking a true Integrated Marketing Communications approach should base budget allocations on the marketing communications objectives that need to be achieved, rather than being constrained by budgets imposed by management.

The advertising campaign budget should fit in with overall company objectives and must take into consideration other market factors, such as the following:

Advertising frequency. This refers to the number of times an advertisement is repeated during a given time period. The higher the desired advertising frequency, the higher the advertising budget required. It has been estimated that a consumer must come in contact with an advertising message nine times before he or she will remember that message.
Competition intensity. This refers to the degree of competition in the market. The more competitive the market, the higher the advertising budget required to simply remain at par with a product or brand's competitors.
Clutter of the market. The more cluttered a market, the more necessary the advertising interventions and the higher the advertising budget, in order that the advertised product will stand out.
Desired market share. Companies desiring to increase market share typically require a large advertising budget, since their competitors are likely to react defensively with their own advertising campaigns. A company seeking to be the market leader must have a substantial advertising budget.
Product differentiation. In competitive markets where the products are so similar that customers find it difficult to tell them apart, aggressive advertising campaigns with higher budgets may be required in order to help make customers aware of the product's availability and unique features.
The product's stage in its life cycle. In general, advertising budgets are highest for products in the introduction stage. Advertising budgets typically decline gradually as products mature.

Advertising Approach. After choosing which type of advertising campaign to use and after drawing up a budget, an advertiser must decide which advertising approach to use. The advertising approach will specify the frequency goals, media impact, media timing, and the reach of the campaign.

The frequency goals specify the number of times that the average consumer should be exposed to the message during the campaign period.
Media impact considers the effectiveness of each media outlet by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each outlet vis-à-vis its cost. Evaluating the media impact helps advertisers determine which media outlets will maximize the interest and awareness of the consumer.
Advertisers must also consider media timing, which simply put, refers to the timing of the advertisements: For instance, advertisers must consider whether a campaign should be run during a specific season or whether the advertisements should run in a continuous pattern (scheduled in a regular manner) or pulsing pattern (scheduled disproportionately over a period of time).
In addition to the above, an advertiser must specify the reach of any advertising campaign: That is, the percentage of customers within the target market who will be exposed to the campaign during a given time period. The aim is to reach as close to 100 percent of the target market as possible, since the chance of future sales is directly related to the exposure of the target audience.

Before running any advertising campaign, all advertisements must be copy tested and, if necessary, improved upon. This is to ensure that the advertisements contain the best quality messaging, captivate the audience's attention, and lead to the desired behavioral change.

Advertising for Noncommercial Purposes. Advertising can be used for noncommercial purposes as a tool for informing, educating, and motivating large audiences. Such advertising is often referred to as advocacy advertising, cause marketing, noncommercial advertising, public-interest advertising, public service advertising, or social marketing.

Increasingly, the advertising campaigns of profit-making companies contain social dimensions, as companies affiliate with noncommercial public-interest issues and initiatives such as health concerns, human rights advocacy, crime prevention, and environmental preservation. This type of advertising is also known as cause marketing, cause-related marketing, corporate issue promotion, corporate social marketing, social issues marketing, mission marketing, or passion branding. Such advertising appears to be well received by consumers, especially when the cause is one that the customers care about. Therefore, corporate advertising with a social dimension helps to create a positive corporate image.

Advertising campaigns that aim to serve social goals face many challenges and obstacles.

First, social advertising campaigns involve more complex and longer creative and production processes, since they have multiple objectives and they require more research than normal.
Second, social advertising campaigns typically face resistance from salespeople and retailers, either because of lower-than-expected sales or because the salespeople and retailers do not care about the social agenda and do not appreciate the strategic benefits that may be derived from being associated with the cause.
Third, social advertising campaigns are also prone to resistance from company management, especially when management is uncertain about how the social agenda can help meet the company's economic goals and when the company does not have a history of innovative advertising, risk-taking, or civic-mindedness.
Fourth, some would argue that company advertising with social dimensions is tantamount to exploitation, depending on the campaign's objectives and motivations.

Advertising campaigns with a social agenda are most likely to succeed when there is compatibility between the cause and the company, with the cause bearing some relationship to the company's core business; when internal and external shareholders also have some affinity to the cause; and when the campaign has the support of nonprofit organizations and associations affiliated with the cause.

Advertising Campaign Effectiveness. It is virtually impossible to generalize which factors may favor the success of any advertising campaign. The conditions favoring the success of any campaign will vary depending on the advertising objective of that particular campaign. Therefore, even before developing an advertising campaign, an advertiser must first find a match between attributes of the product or service advertised and the needs of the consumer. The chances of success will be higher if the advertised product has features perceived as unique by the target market.

In addition, the more the consumers who are satisfied with the products of a company's competitors, the lower the likelihood that the company's campaign will be successful; therefore, companies must conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys to monitor their own market performance and to identify the weaknesses and strengths of their competitors. Furthermore, the degree of advertising expertise of the corporate staff assigned to the campaign will also impact the success of the campaign: The greater the advertising know-how of the team assigned to the campaign, the greater the chances of campaign success.

Advertising campaigns can be evaluated based on their initial objectives, as well as through a comparison of pre-campaign and post-campaign sales of the product or service that was advertised. Advertising campaign effectiveness can also be measured by a means known as ad tracking. This involves measuring shifts in the target market's perceptions and analyzing these shifts in relation to the levels of exposure that the consumers have had to the company's advertisements and promotions.

Issues

Advertising clearly has many benefits, and although some argue that advertising is necessary, for example, as a tool for economic growth, advertising campaigns do have several limitations. For instance, they cannot focus on the specific needs of individual consumers. Again, most advertising campaigns cannot provide in-depth information about the products, services, or causes that are being promoted. Even when information is provided, the advertising messages often convey partial truths, and the advertising campaigns themselves do not provide the means for consumers to verify the advertising claims. In comparative advertising, for example, the lack of accurate information tends to leave customers confused and in doubt about an organization's or a brand's integrity.

Advertising campaigns are also not cost-effective for small companies. In fact, economists believe that advertising raises barriers to entry for new firms, and therefore it distorts competition. They argue that advertising distracts consumers from price. In this regard, advertising has been said to create false values and make consumers purchase items they do not need or want. Worse still, consumers are often led to purchase and consume products that may be harmful to them, such as cigarettes, alcohol, and prescription drugs, leading to government regulation of the advertising of such products.

Sociologists complain that advertising promotes materialism and suggests that the possessions one has are more important than who one is. Consumer advocates maintain that advertising victimizes and exploits children and can be offensive to the elderly, to minorities, and to women. Unsolicited advertising such as spam is a nuisance to consumers and Internet service providers. Even advertisers themselves have their concerns about whether their advertising campaigns are yielding value for money: Due to the difficulties in predicting or evaluating the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, advertisers often cannot tell whether their efforts have been worthwhile, though tracking advertising success has become easier in the Internet era.

Advertising also impacts the content, visions, and actions of the media, particularly in those media outlets that generate most of their revenue from advertising. Such media organizations often seek first and foremost to make their medium as attractive to advertisers and consumers as possible, to the extent of airing programs that, by their nature, are low in mental stimulus and require little concentration, in order to heighten the attractiveness of the advertisements and prevent the target audience from switching to another media outlet.

Due to the negative impacts of advertising, efforts have been made to regulate the content and reach of advertising through regulation on the part of governments, the advertising industry, and other industries. Some countries have therefore imposed bans on the advertising of particular products on specific media and to specific audiences, particularly children.

On the positive side, however, advertising can actually create new markets for products and services, and through free competition, advertising can lead to continuous product improvement, as different brands try to gain advantage over each other.

Terms and Concepts

Advertising: Advertising is the paid promotion of a cause, idea, opinion, product, or service by an identified sponsor attempting to inform or persuade a particular target audience through a nonpersonal medium. Advertising also refers to the profession and the business of designing and writing advertisements, along with any related techniques and practices.

Advertising Agency: A company that designs and produces advertising messages, sometimes handling other forms of promotion for its clients.

Advertising Approach: The advertising approach specifies the frequency goals, media impact, media timing, and the reach of an advertising campaign.

Advertising Campaign: An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages on the same idea and theme which constitute a consistent, seamless, one-voice integrated marketing communication (IMC).

Advertising Campaign Theme: The central message to be communicated through an advertising campaign.

Advertising Frequency: Advertising frequency refers to the number of times an advertisement is repeated during a given time period.

Advertising Objective: An advertising objective is a statement that specifies the basic message to be delivered by a particular advertising campaign, the target audience to whom the message is to be delivered, the intended effect of the advertising campaign, and the criteria to be used to measure the campaign's effectiveness.

Copy Testing: Copy testing is the study and testing of advertisements prior to their release, with the aim of ensuring that the advertisements ultimately contain the best quality messaging, captivate the audience's attention, and lead to the desired behavioral change.

Frequency Goals: The frequency goals specify the number of times that the average consumer should be exposed to the message during the campaign period.

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC): Integrated marketing communications can be defined as the concept and process of strategically managing audience-focused, channel-centered, and results-driven brand communication programs over time.

Media Impact: Media impact refers to the process of considering the effectiveness of various media outlets by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each outlet vis-à-vis its cost.

Media Timing: Media timing refers to the scheduling of the advertisement messages to be communicated during a particular advertising campaign.

Reach: The reach of an advertising campaign is the percentage of customers within the target market who will be exposed to the advertising campaign during a given time period.

Bibliography

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Advertising Campaigns

On this Page

Subject Terms

Advertising Campaigns

Abstract

Overview

Further Insights

Issues

Terms and Concepts

Bibliography

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