Decoding an Advertising Campaign - Literature review Example

Name: Tutor: Title: Decoding an Advertising Campaign Course: Date: Introduction Advertising campaigns are promotion techniques used to market a brand, product or service. The marketing campaigns may be in the form of print advertisements obtained in newspapers or magazines about new brands. In addition, companies place their graphics-rich adverts on television and websites so as to reach the targeted markets. Studies indicate that combined media adverts generate desirable outcomes relative to the occasional ads that are developed without key strategies. Therefore, companies involved in the sale of products or services, for example, automobile manufacturers are required to evaluate the effectiveness of their advertisement campaigns based on defined strategic criterions (Malefyt 2003). The report provides a detailed analysis of the Red Bull Stratos ad, highlighting its favorable outcomes and the most appropriate advertising strategy used to promote Red Bull brand across the world. The Semiotic Analysis of Advertising Campaigns Semiotic analysis is a major technique used in the advertising campaigns because of its visual shorthand features. Therefore, semiotic analysis can be defined as a tool used by marketers to expose the meaning of symbols so as to enable them analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of their advertisement campaigns. However, it is important to note that effective advertising campaigns take into consideration the company’s cultural codes, and thus should communicate the intended message. Most companies find it easy to assess the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns when marketing their brands using the semiotic analysis. According to O’Guinn, Allen and Semenik (2011) advertising is the paid and mass-mediated approach to persuade. The authors argued that the most commonly used approaches by the marketers to persuade or to appeal to consumers is direct attempt to brand or anchoring a text to the image. This means that advertising is the creation of brand awareness so as to influence the demand for a product or service. The Social Media and Digital Advertising Campaign of Red Bull Stratos Red Bull undertook an important role to promote its Stratos by use of videos to document the record history of Felix Baumgartner who attempted to break, documenting his preparations. The campaign also involved a website that offered information concerning the technology behind breaking the records of Felix. The Red Bull company also ensured that the contents of its energy drink are of high quality and abundantly offered in the market. Today, Red Bull is universally associated with the production of energy drinks because of its amazing and inspirational contents. Similarly, the Red Bull Stratos being an associate branch of Red Bull has taken lead in the market where its Twitter profile provides compelling updates such as Twit Pictures and the Instagram shots of test flights, briefing and actual events happening as well as various preparations and briefings (Peneycad 2012). Throughout the campaign, the technique of storytelling was also used by Red Bull where Stratos was wrapped in a more compelling story that involved the transfer of the torch from old veteran to a younger adventurer. The story was a case that involved Joe Kittinger, the formally renowned record holder of various Stratus records ready for breaking. Kittinger was the main consultant and great supporter to Felix Baumgarter of Red Bull Stratos. It happened that throughout the project of Stratos, the relationship between Baumgarter and Kittinger was maintained due to the strong support made to actual jump. This has served as the main human-interest story that most people across the world became interested to listen to. Community involvement was also highly considered in the Red Bull Stratos advertising campaign. The preparations made by Red Bull brand for task of jumping and its live coverage, ensured that community involvement was implemented on the ongoing basis. For example, various questions were discussed via Twitter where the community was allowed to inquire more about the project from Baumgarter at the time of post-jump press conference. This provided a consumer promotion to enable fans to decide whether if Baumgarter would be able to reach down when he jumps. However, Red Bull focused on platform specific advert promotion of its Stratus contents as it can be noted that throughout its preparation stage to the final jump the company developed content that was customized for their social platforms. A number of blog posts were used to develop contents that offered in-depth coverage of Red Bull Strato event particularly for the interested fans (Peneycad 2012). Major lessons that can be drawn from the Social Media and Digital Advertising Campaign of Red Bull Stratos Based on the above discussion of how Red Bull Stratos was advertised, it can be noted that successful advertising campaigns take into consideration the significance of pre-promotion. Therefore, board of directors need to understand that it is only through promotion that their brands or products can be publicly recognized. It is quite clear that investing in pre-promotion creates a pre-built audience at the time when a brand, product or service will be launched. This helps to anticipate and ensure successful penetration into the market. It is also important for the board of directors to find ways through which to develop contents that strategically meet the needs of their targeted audiences by ensuring high-quality and engaging contents are advertised throughout their campaigns (Peneycad 2012). This implies being creative is a major factor that should be considered when creating the contents for advert campaigns. However, the main challenge remains how to identify content opportunities that are effective as well as determining the ultimate way to benefit from the advert content. From the storytelling point of view, it means that the board of directors is required to involve stories in their advert campaigns. It is important to mention that the story to be told whether online or not should be a compelling one to ensure that social media used is inherently associated with the brand being advertised. As a result, a number of consumers will find the brand interesting which in turn will help to build emotional bond that did not exist before. Red bull Stratos tremendously involved in the digital and social media marketing of its inspiring contents. Therefore, the ability to develop a story is a significant aspect of content marketing because it helps to create a hook so as to engage the audiences. The advertising campaign of Red Bull Statros, it can be seen that the concerned team used various hooks to make the strato-jump event successful and all of them were dramatic and involved imagination. For example, jump was presented as being death defying which indicated the significance attached to science where the surviving record mentor Kittinger to Baumgarter was able to speculate the resulting effects of breaking the sound barricade on the body of Baumgarter (Nicola 2012). The board of directors needs to realize that community involved plays an integral role in ensuring the successful advertising campaign for any product or brand. Therefore, it would be important for them to involve their communities with their brands so as to create rooms for the targeted audiences to stay interested in the services they offer. Being the market leaders of their companies, the boards of directors need to be aware that developing brand affinity and loyalty calls for community involvement in advert campaigns of their brands. However, this can be achieved only if their brands are well-positioned in the eyes of their consumers who can be able realize that a relationship is built with their brands as well as people involved in the promotion of that particular brand (Rebecca 2011). This was the main goal of Red Bull Stratos as a social media marker. Generally, the advertising campaign strategy of Red Bull Stratus can be seen as a shocking co-branding market event because it involve the collaboration between Baumgartner’s team and its sponsor company Red Bull. Today, the Red Bull brand is highly demanded because of its new and attractive components promoted by the Stratus storyline. The core values of Red Bull have been strengthened due to their perfect alignment with stratospheric jump. It can be argued that by enhancing the brand value of Red Bull, it will continue to win the new and loyal consumers of energetic drink. The success story about Stratos does not necessary provide information on how companies should carry out their market expenditures, but creates sponsoring insights rather than being considered as a marketing technique. This does not mean that Red Bull Company did not incur costs in promoting its brand, but the most important part of the Stratos storyline could be the probable chance of human casualty suffering. The case for Felix Baumgartner where it can be argued that the current global and continuous praise given to him could no longer be extended if Felix died before accomplishing his mission of breaking the world record. Therefore, it is relevant to argue that Red Bull took the risk and won (Warren-Payne 2012). The Effect of Red Bull Stratos Advertising Campaigns on the social sphere It is important to study the relationship between society and media in advertising because media helps to build societies, while advertising shapes as well as impacts on society. Therefore, it is through interacting in the society that individuals can learn through the media and advertising campaigns. Nicola (2012) argued that the success of Red Bull Stratos advertising campaign indicates a great cultural shift in the marketing sector where brands are used to improve society rather than focusing on their bottom lines. Therefore, effective advertising should be time updated and constantly promote social and cultural changes that lead to the establishment of marketing as well as advertising opportunities. From the advertising campaign of the Red Bull Stratos, marketing leaders or board of directors should be able to learn that it is important to practice a sense of purpose in the attempt to market their brands. It is apparent that Red Bull Stratos not only focused on marketing the authentic link of its brand to sport and innovation, but also ensured that their employees become highly motivated than simply selling the energy drinks that seemed to matter throughout their lives. This implies that people are more interested in creating relationship with brands so as to get the feel and share them, and thus brands should reflect bigger purpose and convey a message that goes beyond sales. It is also important for the marketing leaders to practice extreme marketing. Through the advertising campaign of Stratos, Red Bull has managed to establish an extreme marketing institution. The Red Bull Stratos advertising campaign shows a wider shift in the marketing sector, particularly in this digital age where it is not easy to pre-occupy brand valuation and image. Today, most consumers require that brands prove their market worthiness which implies that behavior is closely related to brand values. Therefore, board of directors need to assess the impact of their brands on people because advertising campaign is more than marketing but the significance of how their businesses behaves (Rebecca 2011). Conclusion Based on the above advert analysis, it can be concluded that effective advertising campaigns take into consideration the company’s cultural codes so as to communicate the intended message. Semiotic analysis is commonly used by companies to assess the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns as the attempt to market their brands. Red bull Stratos massively involved in the digital and social media marketing of its inspiring contents. Successful advertising campaigns bear in mind the significance of pre-promotion. Therefore, investing in pre-promotion creates a pre-built audience at the time of launching a brand, product or service. Although identifying the content opportunities that are effective as well as determining the ultimate way to benefit from the advert content proves to be a great challenge. It is important for the board of directors to understand that being creative is a major factor that should be considered when creating the contents for advert campaigns. The core values of Red Bull have been made stronger by ensuring their perfect alignment with stratospheric jump. In order for advertising campaigns to be effective, they should be time updated and continue to promote both social and cultural changes that lead to discovery of new markets as well as advertising opportunities. Bibliography Barbara, L., 2010, ‘How Brands Become People: A Study on the Impact of Brand Personality on Brand Value’, Copenhagen Business School. Malefyt, T., 2003, ‘Advertising Cultures’, Oxford, Berg. Nicola, K., 2012, ‘Six marketing lessons from Red Bull Stratos’, Retrieved January 17, 2013 from, O'Guinn, T., Allen, C & Semenik , R., 2011, ‘Advertising and Brand Promotion, Sixth Edition’, Cengage Learning. Peneycad, M, 2012, ‘Ways through which Red Bull Absolutely Killed It with Stratos’, Content Marketing. Retrieved January 17, 2013 from, Rebecca, L., 2011, ‘Content Marketing: Think Like a Publisher - How Brand Contents can be used for online transaction and in Social Media’, Que Publishing. Warren-Payne, A., 2012, ‘The major content marketing lessons that can be learnt from the Red Bull Stratos jump’, Retrieved January 16, 2013 from, Appendix Appendix 1: for brands to be great, the must go beyond Return on Investment (ROI) Appendix 2: Red Bull Stratos existed as Shock Co-Branding Appendix 3: The mission of Red Bull Stratos was to develop a story Read More