Advocacy advertising is an ad type that implies promoting an issue or interests of a group rather than products or services compared to commercial advertising. The goal of advocacy advertising is to draw the audience’s attention to the problem and increase awareness.
Advocacy advertising is often focused on economic, political, social, and environmental issues. For example, you’ve definitely run across ads asking people to take part in campaigns devoted to reducing toxic waste dumped into a sea or river. Another famous example is raising funds for scientific research that aims to develop drugs to cure AIDS or cancer.
Now you can be interested in people involved in creating advocacy advertising. They are mostly non-profits, corporations, and lobbyists, but they could be any interested advocacy groups. Sometimes several areas are engaged in advocacy advertising. For example, a local candidate can express their opinion supporting scientific research that aims to create drugs to combat AIDS. Afterward, advocacy groups turn to this candidate in order to receive some funding. You can often see this move during the elections, especially when opposing candidates look for extra techniques to win the votes.
Now that you understand how advocacy advertising works, let’s discover its advantages.
Advantages of Advocacy Advertising
The most significant advantage is exposure. This type of ad allows everyone who is concerned about a certain issue to find like-minded people all around the world and motivate them to action. This, in its turn, enables advocacy groups to increase awareness.
Traditional advocacy advertising channels include radio, newspapers, and magazines, but now they are outdated, less effective, and too expensive. Hence, people look for channels that require little investment. And these channels do exist.
Social media channels contribute the most to promoting advocacy ads. They need little money, reach a wide audience immediately, and provide a huge choice of formats available. Facebook and Instagram are the most popular channels to start with. With email campaigns, you can send personalized messages to specific segments of people interested in a certain issue. SendPulse allows you to send 15,000 emails to 500 subscribers each month for free. Lastly, you can create your website or a landing page devoted to a particular problem. It will help you collect the email addresses of those who are interested and ask them for donations. With SendPulse, you can create a landing page or link page for your social media bio without any coding skills and for free.
Now that you know about the benefits and channels that can assist you, get inspired with some examples.
Examples of Advocacy Advertising
The advocacy ad below encourages car drivers to mind people riding bikes on the road since this confrontation is eternal. The girl with tire marks on her face immediately draws attention and makes us think about the problem of bike safety. Being well-equipped doesn’t guarantee your safety on the road.
This advocacy ad encourages people to respect the Earth by turning off the lights during Earth Hour. This campaign is run every year, and it makes people become more aware of their environmental responsibility.
The last example of an advocacy ad deals with the problem of domestic violence. It encourages women not to keep silent. In fact, there are centers supporting women who suffer from domestic abuse in almost every town. They can just call and ask for help.
Congrats, now you know how advocacy advertising works and have some examples that prove its importance. If you are concerned with a certain issue, there are definitely at least a hundred people in the world who are ready to support you and fight this problem together, so don’t keep silent!
References
- This article provides a real-world example of advocacy advertising.
- This article describes common advocacy advertising outlets and regulations in detail.
Last Updated: 21.03.2023
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