A political campaign aims to influence the decisions of voters within the framework of an electoral process.
The etymological origin of campaign comes from the Latin campanĕa which, in turn, derives from campus ( "field" ). The term was born to refer to the flat and open field that does not present mountains or rough edges.
A campaign is also the set of acts that are carried out with the intention of achieving a certain objective . Campaigns can be developed from civil society (through non-governmental organizations, citizens' associations, etc.) or through political parties. For example: "The singer promotes a campaign against bullfighting in Spanish territory" , "New campaign against tobacco promotes a healthier life" , "I am collecting signatures for a campaign in favor of organ donation" .
The political campaign
The actions carried out by a political party with the aim of influencing the decisions of voters in the elections are known as a political campaign or electoral campaign . Countries usually regulate the development of political campaigns to avoid abuses and illegalities. The financing of campaigns and the period in which they can be carried out are regulated by law .
Political campaigns have various facets. On the one hand, candidates take to the streets and hold public events to appear close to voters. In this context, it is common for them to greet people or take photos with children. On the other hand, campaigns display candidate advertisements on posters or in the media (newspapers, television, Internet ).
The influence of new technologies
It is interesting to keep in mind that, in recent years, with the advancement of new technologies, the term interactive political campaign has been created. This expression is intended to refer to the actions that election candidates carry out in the Internet and with other information technologies in order to make their program known and obtain citizens' votes.
Specifically, in this way what is done is to make a strong commitment to social networks that will allow the candidate to be in continuous interaction with potential voters to whom he will inform each and every one of his steps during the campaign.
An awareness campaign seeks to make the population aware of a certain problem.
Advertising and military campaign
An advertising campaign , on the other hand, is a set of commercial strategies to disseminate and advertise a product or service .
Any company or business that wants to improve its results, both in terms of the number of clients and profits, it is important that it carry out a campaign of this type that, as it could not be otherwise, will be put in the hands of experts. of the sector to achieve the aforementioned objectives.
These professionals in the field of advertising will not hesitate to design and launch one of these advertising campaigns that will be made up of the following phases: definition of the purposes to be achieved, exhaustive analysis of the different alternatives that exist to undertake the promotion, selection of the alternatives to use, verification of the effectiveness of the choice, launch of the campaign and finally what would be the control and evaluation of the results achieved.
In the field of the armed forces, finally, a military campaign is a set of war actions that take place in the same place and in the same period.