The following is a summary of the response to the ideas posted in the article Hypothesis #5: The Campaign is Dead (5/24).

Apparently quite a few of you disagree with Brian Halligan. That’s okay; in fact, that’s the reason I started this blog.

Some of you argue that the old-fashioned notion of campaigning is the only way to reach a target demographic. The trick, says David Jenkins, of digiBunker, is blending promotions with branding:

Businesses often have different demographic targets to reach and various objectives in a given year. In order to achieve the goal of getting the message out to the consumer they’ll often launch different marketing campaigns. For those campaigns to be successful they need to keep the campaign attached to their branding message.

So was Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign just that — a series of advertisements tied to a series of branding messages? Or, as some of you indicate, is it something a bit more complex? Are we perhaps combining ad campaigns into more sweeping branding efforts?

Take, for example, the testimony of Julie Gareleck, Founder and Managing Partner at Junction Creative Solutions:

Executing truely comprehensive marketing strategies consistently over time will yield a greater return. As consumers become more contextual, the need for consistent and persistent brand experiences to engage and retain is great.

The point that is often reiterated is that inbound marketing — the kind that defies any notion of “campaigning” — just can’t offer the same kind of targeting as, say, emailing a segment of your database. Tomorrow I will present the flip side to this coin — hopefully with the expert input of a few of my more inbound-oriented friends. But what do you think about all this? Do campaigns still serve a purpose? Can they be replaced with something else? If so, what?

To participate in this conversation like David and Julie have, please either leave a comment below or join the conversation on LinkedIn.