The Difference Between Advertising Campaigns' Strategies & Concepts

by Erin Schreiner Google

When seeking to build their businesses and get customers flocking to their doors, many companies elect to launch an advertising campaign. An advertising campaign is a sizable and comprehensive program that covers all facets of the advertising process, from ad creation to dissemination. Both concepts and strategies make up a complete advertising campaign, but these two advertising components are not interchangeable. Instead, they are distinct; and both serve a specific function within the advertising process as a whole.

Overall Message

The advertising campaign concept is the overall message of the campaign as a whole. For example, if an advertiser is seeking to sell baby food, he may select a concept that focuses on the fact that the food is all-natural by featuring babies in wildflower fields or sitting amongst vegetables and fruits. After deciding upon the concept, the advertiser is ready to decide how he will put this concept to use and develop his strategies.


Advertising strategies are the methods that advertisers use to convince buyers to purchase their products. While related to the concept, they are distinct. Often, advertisers will use time-tested persuasion strategies in their advertising. For example, they may adopt a bandwagon strategy and attempt to show buyers that everyone is buying the advertised product and, as a result, the viewer should too.

Order of Selections

While there is no one set method for developing an advertising campaign, in general advertisers first select a campaign concept, then allow this concept to inform the rest of the advertisement creation process. By starting with the concept, the advertiser can create a strong foundation upon which to build the rest of his advertising campaign. Also, because the concept is the over-arching theme of the campaign as a whole, it often only makes sense to select this element first.

Campaign Changes

Because the campaign strategies and concepts are not necessarily tied to each other, you can change one without changing the other. For instance, if the advertiser decides that his initial concept needs to be revamped, he can adopt a new concept without changing the strategies he is employing. Similarly, if the advertiser decides that his strategies aren't as effective as he hoped they would be, he can select new strategies while still keeping his central concept in place.

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