Advertising campaign
The advertising campaign is a set of promotional activities and events aimed at the active promotion of the product in the market. The development of an advertising campaign is a multistage and progressive process which requires a clear understanding of the target audience, its needs and motivations to buy. Quality advertising campaign provides such an important time as product positioning in the market. All this together forms a strategy of product promotion and creates tactics to improve the competitive position.
Any advertising campaign consists of two phases – training and direct implementation. The development of an advertising campaign starts with a situation analysis, which results become the basis for marketing strategy. The planning process defines the goals of the advertising campaign, the time, planned budget etc. Also you create marketing brief that describes the main concepts of the campaign. In addition, development involves not only the planning but also the implementation of marketing activities aimed at target audience of customers.
One of the objectives of any advertising campaign is to communicate to the end user with the most complete information and the benefits and features of the advertised product. Regardless of the timing of the advertising campaign it should be effective in the short and long term. Marketing activities should focus on global and local company goals.
The advertising campaign may be designed for one product and for a complex ofrelated products.
The types of advertising campaigns
There are many signs on which the advertising campaign can be divided into categories.
Geographic advertising campaigns are divided into:
- Local;
- Regional;
- National;
- International.
The intensity of impact on the target audience of the advertising campaign is divided into:
- Smooth;
- Growing;
- Descending;
- Continuous;
- Pulse.
By source, advertising campaigns globally are divided into:
- The TV campaign;
- The online campaign.
Depending on the specifics of the target audience the advertising campaigns are:
- Mass and niche;
- For business and for the buyer.
It is also possible to classify the advertising campaign depending on their goals. This can be a conclusion product innovation, improving the company's reputation, sales promotion or reminder about a product. In addition, the advertising campaign can be created under already existing product and new product, which is not yet introduced on the market.
The stages of an advertising campaign
Any advertising campaign is a coordinated sequence of actions that starts with the correct setting goals and ends with evaluation of effectiveness. Work on advertising campaign includes the following major stages:
- Situational analysis;
- The definition of the strategy;
- The creation of the campaign;
- The implementation of the campaign;
- Assessment of effectiveness and adjustment.
At the stage of situational analysis there is the evaluation of what is currently happening at the market, the behavior of the target audience. A portrait of a potential buyer is formed. Also in the process of situational analysis examines competitors and their strategies. All collected information in this phase will be later used in strategicplanning. In addition, the situation analysis allows determining the prospects of development of the market.
The second phase of work on the advertising campaign is strategic planning. The planning task is to define the objectives of the campaign and the period of its implementation. There is also product positioning in the market – emotional, rational, functional, or social value. Strategic planning also involves the determination of the campaign budget.
Creating a campaign
One of the main tasks of marketing is to develop a working concept of the advertising campaign. The concept is a comprehensive idea of what promotional actions will be taken and why. The concept is, in fact, the idea of advertising, supported by professional arguments. Creating a campaign involves the substantiation of a choice of advertising channels. That is an advertising idea is the foundation of any campaign, and this issue should be given maximum attention to.
At the stage of development of the company, the total creative promotion strategy is determined, the media strategy is formed and the main objectives of the campaign are outlined. The team of marketers thinks about tactics and allocates advertising budget for different markets and advertising tools. The purpose of the strategy is the final step in creating the campaign, and after that the implementation phase comes.
The campaign
This step creates advertising content that is tested on a focus group or series of online tests, and then demonstrates how to mass target audience. In the process of implementing the campaign it is very important to adhere to the planned strategy, but do not forget about flexibility.
Advertising campaign on paper and in reality are two fundamentally different things. At the stage of implementation one can understand how effective advertising campaign is and so it justifies the commercial expectations of the advertiser. In the process of implementing the campaign also collects statistics that in the future you can use to adjust strategy and tactics.
Performance evaluation and adjustment
At this stage there is the analysis of the advertising campaign, the evaluation of the effectiveness of marketing actions. Also it identifies the most effective promotional tools.
After the detailed analysis there is the moment of assimilation of the information received about the campaign and its adjustment. After all this the advertising campaign starts again with the adjustment or is minimized if the strategy is admitted to be a failure.