What is a Campaign?

The online definition of a campaign is -

"a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication"

In other words, it is the use of multi-media and convergence to create cohesive adverts that go together (creating a campaign) to promote and sell a song, album, artist, film etc. Campaigns vary dependent on the
style of the product and the desired 'look'. Additionally, the target audience has a large impact on this in terms of what is used to promote the product, for example, if you wanted to target a younger audience, perhaps social media would be more effective than a printed advertisement. 

Argued to be one of the best advertising campaigns of our time, the Coca-Cola 'Share a Coke' campaign took the world by storm. Utilising their audience as the face of their campaign and personalizing the bottles with people's names, sparked a new love and appreciation for the company as 150 of the most popular names were printed on bottles. Personally, I remember this campaign being launched in 2013/2014 and the feeling of finding my name on a bottle or can or even my friend's names, it was very effective for both children, teenagers and adults, attracting a mass audience globally. This video discusses how the campaign took Australia by storm and how this transformed into a social media frenzy.

In stark contrast to this is the 2015 Protein World campaign as the company sought to expand their audience for their niche product. This was predominantly displayed in the London Underground, where all genders and all ages could see it. The public were outraged by this and took to social media to display this. Although people began discussing the product, it had extremely bad publicity surrounding it and the UK's Advertising Standards Authority received 378 complaints. In addition, there was a petition to remove the ads completely. Once again, this advertisement came out when I was relatively young and I remember seeing it in the underground. It was extremely eye catching due to the color palette, however, it made me think about the way I looked as a young girl. Not only does it body shame those who don't look like that of any age, but it can encourage bad eating behaviors in young children as well as adults, pressured by the beauty standard for women.