Lectures
Lecture 1
I: What is a campaign?
Questions to ask:
● What kind of campaigns do you have in your place of work?
○ Many:
■ a sign telling you to not smoke
■ A sign not to open a certain door
■ A lecture hall’s architecture is designed practically so you can see the
lecturer, but also offers a barrier so people can’t just come up and walk
on the stage.
● Attempts to nudge you into certain behavior.
● What kind of building blocks do these campaigns have?
○ People thought about certain things:
■ The design of a room
■ A certain sign
■ A specific colour
● Who gives advice in your company?
○ All kinds of people
■ Com professionals
■ Professionals in other senses
■ CEOs
■ People with strong opinions
● Who supports their advice (experience, theory, gut feeling)?
○ All kinds of people
■ With experience, you know what works and doesn’t work (PR firms
charge a lot of money bc they show they've had success in the past)
■ People with strong gut feelings who don’t have any experience but still
know something to be true
II: Building blocks of a successful campaign
Basing campaigns on researched principles prove successful
● Because they’re created using serious funding, they want to make sure there is true
substantiation for certain decisions
SUMMARY A successful campaign according to communication managers:
1. Reaches a specific and measurable goal with a certain audience
2. Does not happen by accident but is specifically designed
3. Using established working principles communication (theories)
4. Explains who the target audience(s) are
5. Makes clear which media are used and why
6. Explains what kind of messages are going to be designed and why
EXPLAINED A successful campaign according to communication managers:
, 1. Reaches a specific and measurable goal with a certain audience
a. Decide upon the goal you want to reach, making sure it is specific and
measurable
b. In some cases, goals for briefings for campaigns end up being very ambiguous
(unclear).
i. Example. A cookie factory wants to sell cookies (no one knows about it
but I want to sell a million cookies, it makes people fat but the ingredients
are good for the environment, also the CEO was in the news recently for
fraud accusations)
1. What part of the brief do we focus on?
a. Could do all but may have a terrible campaign based on
the facts.
b. Best to probably do only one thing, which will eventually
determine the approach.
2. Make sure you have a target audience:
a. Students? Since they’re easily accessible.
b. Supermarket shoppers? A location where cookies are
usually sold.
2. Does not happen by accident but is specifically designed
a. Even with a small budget, a campaign is being invested in, so the advice must
provide the most value to them.
3. Using established working principles communication (theories)
a. Linking advice/pitch to working principles of communication
Campaign – the building process
1. There is a problem that requires a communicative solution
a. Need to “distill” a question that has something to do with communication
2. A client makes a briefing for a campaign team/consultant
a. Make assignment from the briefing that the client provides
3. The briefing typically has all kinds of problems
a. Too vague
b. Mentioned goals are not about communication
i. For example, “I want to use Instagram!” but what does that mean?
c. All kinds of detailed solutions are already proposed
4. The campaign team goes to work on a campaign sketch/draft/pitch and presents this
5. Based on the presentation, a general approach is decided upon and the team starts to
build the actual campaign, together with the problem owner
The campaign template
● Giving advice (on communication issues)
, ○ The starting point for modern media campaigns/the template for campaigns was
in the (one answer) 19th century
■ Why? The modern media landscape with different channels became
apparent here.
Example: The Golden Gate Park
● A 19th century multi channel campaign
○ Different channels have different characteristics.
■ Which channels will be used?
■ What kind of messages will be put into those specific
channels?
■ Why will this work (based on theory)?
● GGP campaign makes use of:
○ Sensation
○ Novelty
○ Peripheral route of communication
(emotions instead of ratio)
● Designed by famous campaign designer in 19th century, Randolph
Hearst
● The Golden Gate Park wanted visitors, so they approached Hearst to
create a campaign:
○ Pamphlets
○ Photos in the newspaper
○ Informational books
○ Illustrated books
○ Sensational drawings in newspapers
■ Newspapers like to cooperate with campaigns if
advertisements are framed as news.
■ Most news articles are written by PR professionals and
copied by journalists.
● Result was that more than 20.000 people visited on opening day.
19th century
● Period of industrialization where large scale campaigns were made possible
● Rise of political parties and big beliefs (nationalism – believe in country, socialism)
● Emancipation of the masses (groups were fighting for attention using campaigns to get
their point across)
● Century known as: “rise of the modern media landscape”
○ Campaign templates/bureaus were born in the 19th century
World War I
● Beginning of the 20th century
● Propaganda surrounding the first World War
○ Multi channel campaigns (radio, newspapers, magazines)
Lecture 1
I: What is a campaign?
Questions to ask:
● What kind of campaigns do you have in your place of work?
○ Many:
■ a sign telling you to not smoke
■ A sign not to open a certain door
■ A lecture hall’s architecture is designed practically so you can see the
lecturer, but also offers a barrier so people can’t just come up and walk
on the stage.
● Attempts to nudge you into certain behavior.
● What kind of building blocks do these campaigns have?
○ People thought about certain things:
■ The design of a room
■ A certain sign
■ A specific colour
● Who gives advice in your company?
○ All kinds of people
■ Com professionals
■ Professionals in other senses
■ CEOs
■ People with strong opinions
● Who supports their advice (experience, theory, gut feeling)?
○ All kinds of people
■ With experience, you know what works and doesn’t work (PR firms
charge a lot of money bc they show they've had success in the past)
■ People with strong gut feelings who don’t have any experience but still
know something to be true
II: Building blocks of a successful campaign
Basing campaigns on researched principles prove successful
● Because they’re created using serious funding, they want to make sure there is true
substantiation for certain decisions
SUMMARY A successful campaign according to communication managers:
1. Reaches a specific and measurable goal with a certain audience
2. Does not happen by accident but is specifically designed
3. Using established working principles communication (theories)
4. Explains who the target audience(s) are
5. Makes clear which media are used and why
6. Explains what kind of messages are going to be designed and why
EXPLAINED A successful campaign according to communication managers:
, 1. Reaches a specific and measurable goal with a certain audience
a. Decide upon the goal you want to reach, making sure it is specific and
measurable
b. In some cases, goals for briefings for campaigns end up being very ambiguous
(unclear).
i. Example. A cookie factory wants to sell cookies (no one knows about it
but I want to sell a million cookies, it makes people fat but the ingredients
are good for the environment, also the CEO was in the news recently for
fraud accusations)
1. What part of the brief do we focus on?
a. Could do all but may have a terrible campaign based on
the facts.
b. Best to probably do only one thing, which will eventually
determine the approach.
2. Make sure you have a target audience:
a. Students? Since they’re easily accessible.
b. Supermarket shoppers? A location where cookies are
usually sold.
2. Does not happen by accident but is specifically designed
a. Even with a small budget, a campaign is being invested in, so the advice must
provide the most value to them.
3. Using established working principles communication (theories)
a. Linking advice/pitch to working principles of communication
Campaign – the building process
1. There is a problem that requires a communicative solution
a. Need to “distill” a question that has something to do with communication
2. A client makes a briefing for a campaign team/consultant
a. Make assignment from the briefing that the client provides
3. The briefing typically has all kinds of problems
a. Too vague
b. Mentioned goals are not about communication
i. For example, “I want to use Instagram!” but what does that mean?
c. All kinds of detailed solutions are already proposed
4. The campaign team goes to work on a campaign sketch/draft/pitch and presents this
5. Based on the presentation, a general approach is decided upon and the team starts to
build the actual campaign, together with the problem owner
The campaign template
● Giving advice (on communication issues)
, ○ The starting point for modern media campaigns/the template for campaigns was
in the (one answer) 19th century
■ Why? The modern media landscape with different channels became
apparent here.
Example: The Golden Gate Park
● A 19th century multi channel campaign
○ Different channels have different characteristics.
■ Which channels will be used?
■ What kind of messages will be put into those specific
channels?
■ Why will this work (based on theory)?
● GGP campaign makes use of:
○ Sensation
○ Novelty
○ Peripheral route of communication
(emotions instead of ratio)
● Designed by famous campaign designer in 19th century, Randolph
Hearst
● The Golden Gate Park wanted visitors, so they approached Hearst to
create a campaign:
○ Pamphlets
○ Photos in the newspaper
○ Informational books
○ Illustrated books
○ Sensational drawings in newspapers
■ Newspapers like to cooperate with campaigns if
advertisements are framed as news.
■ Most news articles are written by PR professionals and
copied by journalists.
● Result was that more than 20.000 people visited on opening day.
19th century
● Period of industrialization where large scale campaigns were made possible
● Rise of political parties and big beliefs (nationalism – believe in country, socialism)
● Emancipation of the masses (groups were fighting for attention using campaigns to get
their point across)
● Century known as: “rise of the modern media landscape”
○ Campaign templates/bureaus were born in the 19th century
World War I
● Beginning of the 20th century
● Propaganda surrounding the first World War
○ Multi channel campaigns (radio, newspapers, magazines)
