Monday, 29 September 2014

Introduction to Campaigns

Google defines the word 'Campaign' as "an organized course of action to achieve a goal" - but this is very vague, and does not cover the different methods and types of campaigning and the age range targets  that are used.

For example;
- A campaign for an election or vote (targeted at 18+ as this is the minimum age to vote from)


- Public Safety (anti speeding etc) - targeting age here is difficult depending on what is being campaigned against - so speeding would be at 17+ whereas looking before you cross the road may be targeted at younger children.
An example of a public safety campaign would be DOE's anti speeding advertisement campaign which was released in 2007 and was aimed mainly at males from the age of 17-24.
Image of The Faster the Speed, the Bigger the Mess campaign




-Charity - asking for donations to help the charity that is being campaigned for - who this is targeted at also varies depending on what the charity is in aid of. 
An example of a charity campaign would be the NSPCC's campaign 'The Underwear Rule'. This was a campaign to help children understand that privates are private etc.





Political - Also comes under the category of elections voting/ but campaigns to help people and get an important political message are also involved here.
An example of this would be the Labour Party's 'Airbrushed Cameron' campaign. This included a picture of an airbrushed David Cameron to show that not everything you see is what you get.

These are all different methods but largely use the same sort of advertisement for their campaigns - for example posters/adverts/leaflets/websites/ to get their message across. 


In order to attract an audience to these campaigns a number of techniques are used - for example threat,shock, catchy music/slogans, and well known or famous people. These are all things that will make the campaigns memorable and believable and the desired outcome is to get the audience to agree with the campaign and help with the cause.

Wednesday, 17 September 2014

Analysing cross-media campaigns

Road Safety Campaign Film HD - teen-anti speeding UK






This Campaign is run by Drive Smart. The campaign is anti-speeding and also about  not giving in to peer pressure and being controlled by your friends into doing the wrong thing whilst driving.
The campaign starts off with a group of friends talking about what they're going to watch at  the cinema, and that they need to hurry up to get there on time. At this point the boy called Alex tells them he doesn't want to drive. Ropes start tying themselves around his wrists and he resembles a puppet (because he is being controlled into doing what his friends want). The puppet strings make him start driving the car, and when his friends tell him to speed up, he is forced to do so. Alex is going so fast he crashes, and there is a cut scene to Alex laying in a hospital bed, with (supposedly)  his girlfriend sitting next to him saying sorry. The scene then fades to black and the 'DRIVE SMART' logo appears with the slogan 'CAN YOU STAND UP TO YOUR MATES? BE STRONG - DON'T SPEED.'
I believe that the main aim of the video is to stop teenagers from being controlled into doing anything they don't want to do whilst they are driving. I could not find any other products as I think this is quite old - but looking at the slogan I'd say that the house style is black and yellow.
I think this campaign would be placed before/between/after programmes like Misfits/Skins/Glue etc because they are typically programmes that get a large audience from teenagers.
The Campaign was Published around March 2010.