Aida - Model For An Advertising Agency

An ad agency or advertising agency is a business or service dedicated to planning,

handling and creating advertising for clients. These agencies are independent of clients

and provide their skills and views to sell client’s services or products.

Advertising agencies can also manage branding strategies, marketing and sales

promotions for its clients.

For an advertising agency, it is very important to realize that they can increase sales with

their effort. Truly speaking, advertising agencies are minds working on the other side of

the internet to increase sales. For a person working as an advertising agent, it is very

important to know about the buyer’s psychology.

Those who are working in an advertising agency should know about the various thought

processes that go in the mind of a reader or a viewer, a potential buyer. This will

definitely help to build your business better.

There are sample of theories to explain the process that goes in the buyer’s mind when

he/she goes to purchase anything, the process is not the same for each buyer and it is

sequential.

One of the popular features followed by ad agencies is AIDA. The term and approach are

commonly attributed to American advertising and sales pioneer, E. St. Elmo Lewis.

The AIDA model states that advertising agency should know how to draw attention of a

buyer to get the customer interested by exhibiting its advantages, benefits and features.

Interest is followed by desire. It is advertising agency’s duty to create a desire in a buyer

to buy a specific product. All three steps of the AIDA policy will help you to stimulate

the action towards the purchase of a product. AIDA theory guides and leads you to build

a better advertising business. BIG B’s of advertising world have followed AIDA to

generate good advertisement campaigns.

AIDA is an acronym stands for:

A – Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer.

You must first capture the viewer’s attention — an essential component of any ad

campaign. Most campaigns rely on a mix of visual stimuli to accomplish this, using

images to help an ad stand out and create a lasting impression. Text is then employed to

further grab attention, enticing the reader to continue reading in search of more

information. That is why the first paragraph of a sales letter, direct mail piece or ad needs

to be the strongest.

Good openers address their problems and begin with such as:

· Have you ever...?

· Are you noticing...?

· Can you see...?

Bad openers give them something to object to, demonstrate your disrespect, or just bore

them to tears, and may begin with such as:

· I've got just the thing you want...?

· I just dropped by so that I might...?

· I was only wondered whether you could...?

I – Interest: raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and

benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising).

Now that you have their attention, you need to keep them reading. This is accomplished a

few different ways. Establish a need, create a bond and let them know they are about to

learn something very special. Consumers don't actually need most of the products they

buy but think they do. Being able to establish a need in the mind of a consumer is the

cornerstone of an effective ad campaign. Creating a personal link helps build trust;

hinting at something special to come cements their interest in what you have to say.

Watch out for the boredom factor. You may be able to get someone interested, but you

cannot expect to keep their attention for ever. If you want to come back some day, you

should leave them wanting more, at least of your company.

D – Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that

it will satisfy their needs.

You've got your reader this far, and they think they may need your product but are not

sure. This is the stage where you stoke the flames of their desire until they are absolutely

certain they have to have what you are selling. This is often accomplished through the

problem-solution technique. Your consumer has a problem — you have the solution. The

solution is so amazing; they simply cannot live without it. This phase also covers another

vital facet in any advertising campaign — what's in it for them. This will build the desire

you need them to feel to make that decision.

Desire is like a fire, and can be stoked by many methods, such as:

· Showing them how the item to be desired will not be available for long (Scarcity

principle).

· Showing how other people approve of the item and have acquired it for themselves.

· Showing them how what you have to offer will solve some of their problems.

A – Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.

You've attracted their attention, built their interest and fanned their desire. Now it's time

to get them to take action. A call to action should be in every single ad, regardless of

format. Whether it is a special offer, a free gift or time-limited discount, you need your

customer to act and act now. Whether it's going to your website, picking up the phone or

sending an order, the last section of your advertisement needs to contain a powerful call

to action.

Listen to the signals they are sending. Are they asking you about when you can deliver or

what after-sales support you give?

Summarize the problem you are solving for them and how what you are proposing solves

that problem.

Later versions of the theory have edited the AIDA steps. New phases such as satisfaction

(AIDAS) and confidence (AIDCAS) have been added.

S - Satisfaction - satisfies the customer so they become a repeat customer and

give referrals to a product.

One significant modification of the model was its reduction to three steps (CAB):

Cognition - (Awareness or learning)

Affect - (Feeling, interest or desire)

Behavior - (Action).

Reliance India Mobile campaign

can be used to explain this

model better:

Awareness: The elaborate advertisement where Mukesh Ambani spoke about the new project being introduced on his father’s 70th birthday.

Interest: Was generated as the company spokesperson featured in the ad, as a representative of the company image and also spoke about introducing a new technology – CDMA.

Desire: Was created with various offers like free SMS, 40paise STD calls, easy payment schemes, and discount coupons worth Rs. 1 lakh.

Action: Dhirubhai Ambani Pioneer offers induced people to go for the product.

Also the model can be applied to marketing movies: Where in the initial stage awareness may be created with attention by airing the promos on television. Attention is created with the help of key features like star caste, music, locations, etc.

Interest is then created with the release of the music and by introducing the theme and sales of audiocassettes and CDs indicate the same.

Desire is created with hoardings of the movie and also with the help of several contests and free prizes and attractions like stars visiting the music shops.

In the last stage people are moved to action   in the form of buying tickets as a result of the ratings given to the movies in the dailies, etc

To illustrate one such movie through the AIDA model is:

“BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM”

A - Promos had David Beckham and Football.

I - Introduced Music and Dialogues of film. Also the tag-line: “Who wants to cook Aloo Gobi when you can bend a ball like Beckham?”

D - A fresh movie with a different theme. The film also talked about the success of film overseas

A - Got 3– and 4–star ratings and publicized that in promos.

CRITICISM

Hierarchy of effects model has been criticized on some points, such as that people do not exactly follow these sequences

People in all the cases may not strictly follow a series of stages as are explained in the hierarchy of effects model. They may in certain situations, directly jump to a particular stage, not following the stages in a logical pattern.

For e.g. a child accompanying mother to a grocery store is likely to demand a product without indulging in stages like becoming aware about it, being interested by it and then buying it. He may just be lured by the display.