ATR model of advertising

The major alternative to the strong advertising theory is the ATR model, which states that the steps are: awareness, trial and reinforcement. This theory, which has received support in Europe , suggests that advertising is a much less powerful influence than the strong theory would suggest. The popular ATR model of advertising has received plenty of interest from specialists. As Ehrenberg explains, “advertising can first arouse awareness and interest, nudge some customers towards a doubting first trial purchase (with the emphasis on trial, as in ‘maybe I'll try it') and then provide some reassurance and reinforcement after the first purchase. I see no need for any strong AIDA-like Desire or Conviction before the first purchase is made”. (David Jobber, 1997, p. 327)

His work in fast-moving consumer goods markets has shown that loyalty to one brand is rare. Most consumers buy a repertoire of brands. A major objective of advertising in such circumstances is to defend the brands. The ATR model of advertising does not work to increase sales by bringing new buyers to the brand advertised. Its main function is to retain existing buyers and sometimes to increase the frequency with which they buy the brand. Therefore, the targets are existing buyers who presumably are fairly well disposed to the brand (otherwise they would not buy it) and advertising is designed to reinforce these favourable perceptions. Jones suggests that involvement, whose level has an important role in determining how people make purchasing decisions, may also explain when the strong and weak theories apply. Therefore, advertising is more likely to follow the strong theory either by creating a strong desire to purchase or by convincing people that they should find more about the brand. Since the purchase is expensive it is likely that a strong desire or conviction is required before purchase takes place.

Awareness, trial and reinforcement

However, for low involvement purchase decisions people are less likely to thoroughly consider a wide range of brands before purchase and it is here that the weak theory of advertising almost certainly applies. Advertising is mainly intended to keep consumers doing what they already do by providing reassurance and reinforcement. Advertising repetition will be important to maintain awareness and to keep the brand on the consumer's repertoire of brands from which individual purchases will be chosen. (Larry Percy, John R. Rossiter and Richard Elliott, 2001)

The history of teh ATR model of advertising is interesting. In the 1930s it was acknowledged that advertising could work in more than one way and frameworks began to be constructed. The most enduring from that time is James Webb Young's ‘Five Ways' (1963), which says that advertising works: by familiarizing, by reminding, by spreading news, by overcoming inertias and by adding a value not in the product.

In the 1960s, the premise that the consumer is a passive, rational receiver of information began to be questioned in earnest and Timothy Joyce (1967) suggested that advertising works via a complex relationship of interacting variables. Most importantly, Joyce 's model says that purchasing both influences attitudes and heightens attention to advertising. It also allows for the ‘natural' consumer tendency towards consistent attitudes and purchasing habit irrespective of external stimuli – James Webb Young 's ‘inertia' – which advertising always has to work with or against.

Responses of the ATR model of advertising

The idea that it's not what advertising does to people but rather how people respond to advertising that's important was further developed in the 1970s and Stephen King (1975) constructed a ‘scale of immediacy' in terms of the desired response to a particular piece of advertising. This scale starts with the simplistic view that advertising affects action directly, then modifies it on an increasingly indirect/less immediate continuum of intervening responses, from seeking information right through to reinforcing attitudes.

In between there are responses concerned with the receiver relating the brand to his own needs, wants, desires or motivations, recalling satisfactions, making shortlists and modifying attitudes - the very foundation of the "ATR model of advertising". The great strength of this model is that it recognizes that advertisements can differ in terms of either the speed or the complexity of intervening responses, or both. In fact, the planning and execution of an advertising strategy can only be a process of continuous learning and adaptation, in a competitive environment, where the norm is uncertainty and change. The proper approach is a cycle of analysis, theory, experiment, feedback, new theory and so on. To this end, Stephen King (1977) introduced the famous ‘Five Questions' which frame the planning cycle; the questions are: ‘where are we?', ‘why are we?', ‘where could we be?', ‘how could we get there?' and ‘are we getting there?'.(Leslie Butterfield, 1999, p. 64)

From another point of view, we can talk about other four theories that concern the way advertising works, besides the ATR model of advertising.