AIDA

AIDA is one of the best-known frameworks in marketing communications. It describes four stages through which advertising and promotion can move a person towards a response. The model becomes useful only when it is applied to a defined audience with a plausible interest in the product or service.

When to use it

• To make marketing communications more effective from first exposure through response.
• To diagnose where a campaign is losing people before they act.

Origins

In 1904, American salesmanship pioneer Frank Dukesmith described four steps leading towards product trial or purchase. C. P. Russell later presented the sequence under the acronym AIDA in a 1921 article. Russell noted that the same name belonged to a well-known opera, which made the framework especially easy to remember.

What it is

40% Interest

This stage represents people who may buy the product.

Desire

This narrower group—illustrated as 20% per cent—consists of people who want to buy it.

Action

The final group—illustrated as 10 per cent—contains those who purchase or otherwise respond.

Awareness

Effective communication begins by being noticed. Without awareness, interest cannot form and action cannot follow. Marketers can build visibility through mass media such as television, radio, newspapers, journals and billboards; public relations; direct channels such as flyers, email and sales calls; point-of-sale material; packaging; and social media. The right promotional mix depends on both the audience and the offer.

Most campaigns use several media, which makes it difficult to isolate exactly where awareness originated. This uncertainty is captured in the observation attributed to both John Wanamaker (1838–1922) and Lord Leverhulme (1851–1925): half of advertising expenditure is wasted, but the advertiser cannot identify which half. More spending will generally expand awareness, though some of it will inevitably miss its mark; a conventional rule of thumb is to allocate roughly 2 per cent of revenue to promotion. Expenditure is not the only influence. Repeated messages accumulate over time, while headlines, imagery and colour determine whether a communication creates impact. Word of mouth also matters, with social media now amplifying recommendations that once passed mainly from one person to another. For a century, the UK retailer Marks & Spencer used very little above-the-line advertising and instead depended heavily on customers recommending

the brand.

Interest

Awareness alone does not produce a response. The offer must feel relevant to the target audience and appear capable of satisfying a need or want. Every product or service has features and benefits, but the way those elements are framed determines whether someone wants to consider a purchase. That framing is the customer value proposition (CVP). It must express value from the potential customer’s perspective and use natural language that reflects how the audience thinks and speaks.

Desire

The next task is to turn interest into desire. After considering the features and benefits in the CVP, a potential customer needs a compelling reason to prefer the offer. Strong promotions concentrate on the one or two benefits with greatest audience appeal. Finding and communicating something distinctive, unique and attractive is difficult; campaigns often weaken themselves by presenting so many benefits that no single message stands out.

At this point, the customer may be comparing several alternatives—the “consideration set.” People often begin with a handful of products and progressively eliminate options according to perceived value and benefit. The eventual choice may still turn on an emotional or subjective preference, including an existing attraction to a particular brand.

Action

AIDA ends with a defined action. This might be a purchase, but it could equally be a website visit, a brochure request or any other response the promotion is intended to produce. Because AIDA is sequential, the audience normally narrows sharply at each stage. If 80 per cent of the target group notices a campaign, perhaps 40 per cent will show interest and 20 per cent will develop desire. Only a smaller group may act; in the illustrative funnel, a 10 per cent conversion would be an excellent result by most standards.

Developments of the model

The idea of progressing through stages towards action soon moved beyond advertising. Arthur Sheldon’s 1911 book Successful Selling applied AIDA to sales teams and added satisfaction, reflecting the importance of a happy customer to repeat purchase. This five-stage variation became AIDAS. Other authors proposed further refinements. In 1961, R. J. Lavidge and G. A. Steiner introduced a more detailed sequence for predicting advertising effectiveness. It lacked AIDA’s memorable acronym but described conversion through six steps:

• Awareness: the audience first notices the offer.

• Knowledge: initial recognition develops into useful information about the option under consideration.

• Liking: greater understanding leads people to appreciate particular features or benefits.

• Preference: among competing offers in the consideration set, one begins to stand out.

• Conviction: preference strengthens into confidence that the chosen product is the right one.

• Purchase: accumulated knowledge, liking, preference and conviction culminate in a transaction.

How to use it

The first challenge in a crowded communications environment is earning attention. People notice subjects that already matter to them: a non-drinker is less likely to register an alcohol advertisement than someone who drinks; expectant parents notice messages about babies; gardeners recognise garden-centre promotions; and children attend closely to toy advertising.

Timing changes the amount of competitive noise. Most toys are purchased around Christmas, making that season an obvious time to advertise. Yet when every supplier promotes at once, an individual campaign may secure only a small share of voice. One large toy manufacturer addressed this problem by launching in early October, before the environment became as congested.

Whatever the timing, the communication needs impact. Strong colour, powerful imagery and a compelling headline can secure attention, provided each remains consistent with the brand. Creative teams use visual hierarchy to lead the eye from an image to the headline and then into the body copy. The objective is not decoration but a progression from impact to interest and conviction.

The most effective execution is not always obvious in advance. When industrial-gas manufacturer Air Products tested several advertisements with potential customers, concepts featuring people scored highest for relevance and impact; stylish concepts without people were rejected. David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy & Mather, made the same commercial distinction in his 1983 book on advertising: the goal was not for readers to praise an advertisement’s creativity but to find it interesting enough to buy. He also argued that a powerful headline represented most of the investment because eight in ten readers went no further than the headline.

Some things to think about

Use three questions to test every stage of the sequence:

• Will this promotion earn the target audience’s attention?

• Will that audience experience the message as relevant?

• Does the communication lead clearly towards the intended action?

Top practical tip

Define the audience and desired action before creating the message, then test whether each AIDA stage gives that specific audience a reason to continue.

Top pitfall

Do not assume awareness guarantees conversion. A campaign can attract attention yet fail because its value proposition is irrelevant, its message is diluted or its call to action is unclear.

Further reading

• Strong, E.K. (nineteen twenty-five). The Psychology of Selling and Advertising. McGraw-Hill.
• Barry, T.E. (nineteen eighty-seven). “The Development of the Hierarchy of Effects: An Historical Perspective.” Current Issues and Research in Advertising.