Since its inception, advertising has been associated with sales, money and business competitiveness. This relationship, deeply rooted in society, is partly true, but it does not explain what advertising represents in its entirety. Certainly, a large part of advertising campaigns are financed with the aim of achieving economic benefits, but there are campaigns that pursue objectives that are beneficial to society. We are talking about social advertising .
What is social advertising?
Social advertising is understood as a set of advertising actions that aim to inform, motivate, raise awareness or educate a specific target audience regarding a cause that is objectively important to society.
Although commercial and social advertising architectural industry mailing list have different objectives, it is also true that they share many similarities. In fact, the creative process, the dissemination channels and the persuasive intention in their messages are the same.
There is often some confusion between the terms social advertising and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) . These two concepts have in common their orientation towards social causes, but they differ in that in the case of CSR the company obtains a benefit in terms of improved brand image.
Causes defended by social advertising
As mentioned above, social advertising aims to get society to react to a relevant cause . The nature of these causes can be very diverse, but the most common are the following:
Correct bad habits : smoking, alcoholism, drug addiction…
Prevent diseases : AIDS, STDs, cancer, anorexia, bulimia, depression…
Caring for the planet : environmental actions, preventing climate change…
Defending animals : caring for endangered species, controlling species reproduction, preventing pet abuse or abandonment…
Protecting human rights : people at risk of social exclusion, poverty, racism, sexism…
Campaigns for blood or organ donation .
Prevent traffic accidents .
social advertising traffic accidents
Types of social advertising
Once we have clarified both the concept of social advertising and the main causes that it usually pursues, we can delve into its classification according to various factors.
According to its format
The formats of social advertising are practically the same as those used in commercial advertising, since they are those that have been validated as useful for reaching the right user and persuading them with your message. Thus, the main formats are the following:
Image : physical advertising posters or banners on the Internet.
Video : TV or Internet commercials.
Sound : radio spots
Text : on physical advertising posters or on the Internet.
According to the type of advertiser
One factor to take into account when defining social advertising is the entity that sends the message. In this case, we mainly find the following types of advertisers :
Public bodies , whether state, provincial, municipal, etc.
Non-profit organizations
Commercial organizations , as long as they do not intend to associate the brand with the cause, since in that case it would be CSR.
Associations of citizens formed to achieve a specific objective.