Over the past few years, media campaigns have had a huge influence on our lives -  changing our behaviours and the way we live our lives.

Many larger campaigns have the power to encourage people to make significant lifestyle changes which shows the huge weight these brands have across a large audience.

There are many reasons why a brand or organisation may set up a campaign - to sell a new product, to promote a healthier lifestyle, to raise money for charity - whatever the reason, getting a campaign to gain traction, go viral and encourage people to do their bit is no mean feat.

When done well, a media campaign can enhance the way we see the world, make us think about the way we live our lives and prompt us to make a real change. The campaigns that jump to mind for us at the moment are Dry January and Veganuary.

Dry January was set up by Alcohol Concern back in 2013, encouraging people to abstain from alcohol for one month. While Veganuary was established to ‘reduce the suffering of animals by inspiring and supporting people across the globe to go vegan for the month of January’.

Both of these campaigns encourage quite significant changes for those who take part but how are these campaigns working to transform our behaviour and our lifestyles?

In order for a media campaign to be successful, it has to give potential participants some kind of incentive. The Dry January website claims that 79% of participants saved money by taking part in the challenge and 49% of participants lost weight. Both of these statistics will appeal to the masses as people aim to save more money and lose some weight as part of their New Year’s resolutions.

For Veganuary the incentive can be achieving a healthier lifestyle, trying a new challenge or even making a difference to the world we live in. One of those who made a recent commitment to a vegan diet is our very own junior account manager Rebecca Gregory. She said: “Veganuary is a great opportunity for people to see for themselves that eating a vegan diet isn’t as scary or as difficult as it sounds. It’s great for people to get involved and understand simple changes we can all make to our lifestyles to widen our experience of healthy eating, try new foods and have a more sustainable impact on the world around us.”

The most successful campaigns use fun, not fear to grab the attention of the general public. A great example of this was the Ice Bucket Challenge which took social media by storm back in 2014 and made throwing a bucket of iced water over your head the latest trend.

While not technically a lifestyle change, the Ice Bucket Challenge successfully transformed the lives of people living with motor neuron disease as it was revealed last year that the charity campaign bankrolled the breakthrough discovery of a new gene present in those with motor neuron disease.

What’s clear from all successful media campaigns is that they play on our emotions, are easy to follow or join in and are memorable. We’d be interested to hear what campaigns caught your attention in the last year so let us know your favourites.

If you would like to launch a campaign for your business, get in touch with us.