Bloat text in illustrator, not individual letters

Question

How do you bloat text in Illustrator so that it applies to the whole text area, not just individual letters?

I have converted the text to outlines, and expanded appearance, but when I bloat the text (OK, shapes now I guess) it applies the effect to each letter, whereas I want to distort the area as a whole.

Answer 1

Aargh. Figured it out - Object > Envelope Distort will treat all the objects together.

Answer 2

Or, you could group the expanded text and apply Effect > Warp > Inflate.