“How has our interpretation of campaign effectiveness and effects evolved in recent years?” This is the guiding question of this essay. The purpose of this essay is to present alternative views of different communication theories regarding the concept of communication campaign effectiveness, a central concern for communication scholars around the world over the last 50 years. This literature study has been developed on the basis of carefully selected academic articles mentioned as references and is structured into five main parts: reasons why communication campaigns fail, reasons why communication campaigns succeed, defined effectiveness and effects, new technologies and approaches in relation to campaign effectiveness. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn and future possibilities (which would provide a better interpretation of the effects and effectiveness) will be examined. Public communications campaigns are described as efforts aimed at changing or influencing public behavior through “means of organized communications activity involving mass and online/interactive media and often supplemented by interpersonal support” (Atkin & Rice, 2009). Campaigns are complex communication tools with different phases and components that come into play throughout their life. These phases are: design, evaluation, types of effects (which can be direct or indirect, desired or unwanted), messages. that must be conveyed and mediated communication. Reasons why communication campaigns fail As mentioned above, campaign effectiveness was and still is of little importance to communicators in today's world is to some extent quantifiable, but when this form of communication first began to be used, its concepts and ideas… middle of paper… that fields like neuromarketing were developing . Neuromarketing is “the study of how people's brains respond to advertising and other brand-related messages by monitoring brain activity, eye tracking, and skin response” (Rouse, 2009). Such technological advances would provide enormous insights into customer preferences. Ariely & Bern (2010) argue that neuromarketing would allow communicators to see whether an idea or product would be successful even before it is introduced. It can be observed that our understanding of the effectiveness and effects of the campaign is directly proportional to the development of technology that allows us to have a deeper insight into the human mind and behavior. It is safe to conclude that communicators are slowly moving from a “what we think” mentality to a “what we know” mentality (McAfee, & Brynjolfsson, 2012).