The strong theory of advertising

Here is an overview of the strong theory of advertising - It has its base in the USA and it states that a person passes through the stages of awareness, interest, desire and action (AIDA). According to this theory, advertising is strong enough to increase people's knowledge and change their attitudes and as a consequence, it is capable of persuading people who had not previously bought a brand to buy it. It is therefore a conversion theory of advertising: non-buyers are converted to become buyers. Advertising is assumed to be a powerful influence on consumers.

The strong theory of advertising model has been criticized on two grounds. First, for many types of products there is little evidence that consumers experience a strong desire before buying the brand. For example, in inexpensive product fields a brand may be bought on a trial basis without any strong conviction that it is superior to competing brands. Second, the model is criticized because it is limited to the conversion of a non-buyer to a buyer. It ignores what happens after action, in fact after the first purchase. Yet in most mature markets advertising is designed to affect people who have already bought the brand at least once. (Larry Percy, John R. Rossiter and Richard Elliott, 2001)

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