Advertising in a modern world as today continues to be considered a very trial when the new multimedia stations have reduced the obstacles of market penetration and brand knowledge to the consumers. Somewhat at times the entire concept of starting the brand or something in the market successfully and sustaining its position through out the days is dependant on how strong does the advertising retains its position in the brains of the consumer.
With the amount of products, brands, marketing stations and the ways to inhabit the thought of a fresh product or the reminder of the old brand to a person to achieve their sales through advertising is debate since a long time & most famous among these all is the Strong Versus Weak Theory.
Many theorists have argued on the effects of advertising as a Strong or a Weak theory as their center of debate and among all most prominently the strong issue between by J. P. Jones (1990) and Ethrenberg (1999) is the most popular.
The real truth as almost all of the article writer emphasis that the outcome of advertising is untrue and not reasonable its success and failure is dependant on the products, the market and the purpose of the advertising making e every situation not the same as the other. As quoted "Measuring the potency of advertising is much harder than it may seem. To know weather an advertisement is working, you will need to first be clear in what it is meant to do. Consumer goods manufacturers have a much simple point of view: that advertising is about creating and then nurturing brands" (The Economist, 1996).
The Strong theory argues that the consumer through advertising can be persuaded to switch to a fresh brand or something and can create the interest or change of the needs previously engaged, where as the Weak theory argues that the perception or the demand can't be changed but it can be strengthened or "nudged" to the buyer.
There are a great many other models given which support the debate of Persuasion among which the most crucial is AIDA - Strong (1925) as well as the support of the model the theories like Hierarchy of Results - Lavidge and Steiner (1961) and DAGMAR are always reviewed to support the Strong Theory of advertising.
Where as, the Weak Theory of advertising purposes its factors based on Patterns Theory which is reinforced by the two models distributed by Ethrenberg (1974, 1997).
To understand these quarrels it's important to understand the models given in support of the theories and the assumptions distributed by Persuasion Theory. Persuasion theory assumes that the attitude can be altered through advertising; human beings are always making decisions actively on linear fashion i. e. learn, feel and do. That consumer can be persuaded giving cues because they are less motivated sometimes to make lively decisions on the information they have got.
Strong Advertising
Likewise AIDA helps the Strong theory as the consumer through advertising is captured or has discovered the product, which later when is interested in the product or the situation would desire would choose the product in ensuing as the action. (Strong, 1925). Before that advertising was simply information providing, which maybe true or wrong or even at time misleading (Turner, 1952).
Explanation
Thereafter the other types of Strong theory are as mentioned above Hierarchy of Results (Lavindge and Steiner, 1961) which firmly helps that first the buyer is made aware of the product and then gains knowledge about the product which would lead to liking the merchandise and conclude setting preferences over the other products and is convinced or persuaded to purchasing the merchandise thus helping the argument that the behaviour can be transformed through persuasion and consciousness.
examples
One of the recent television set advertisements of Barclays "Performance", facilitates the Strong Theory of advertising because they are concentrating on persuading the consumer's notion by announcing their new program where the Individual Savings Account (ISA) would get Tax-Free personal savings which is unlike other banks in the UK, following the AIDA model or Lavindge and Steiner's theory that they first created the attention with the new offer which would create consumer's interest and desire ending up them opening an interest free savings account at Barclays.
Weak theory which opposes the Strong theory state governments it is all normally, a 30 second advertisement is highly improbable to persuade a consumer to change their understanding to do what they were not doing before, in the same way, parents, teacher, the clergy or any of us often tell other people what to do but usually each goes on as before (Monyle, 1991)
Thus the fragile theory is more focused on the cognitive process, the mental capability to comprehend the new information and reinforce the consumer on buying the old product over and over instead of turning to a fresh product with new information. Weak Theory of advertising chains the Habit Theory which claims that advert displays the change based on the prior knowledge of product, is reused and can be used as a security against the services coming in the market. It nudges the old customer, reinforces them to old their desires which might be hidden and retains the customer to visit the same habit. Since it reinforces the pervious gained information thus it retains the dedicated customers and reinforces the existing attitudes, it furthermore escalates the product purchase or brand use.
The two models which chains with the Weak theory and are extensively accepted are ATR model (Ehrenberg, 1974) and ATRN (Ehrenberg, 1997). The first model state governments that Understanding, Trial, Support and in second model the nudge is added. These models advocate that the brand's information is already in the mind of the consumer or the advertisement helps the consumer to gain consciousness about the product and gain some interest. The advert is useful to set-up awareness which makes the trial usage of this product. If that product is liked then it reinforces the buyer to repurchase the product; this technique is repetitive every time a consumer pieces the advert, relates to it and gets nudged.
For low engagement products (Heath, 2001) provides an intensive review and shows that there can be an exception that familiar brands in a product category will be a lot like the other person therefore minimal incentive for the consumers to focus on the advertising for these brands. These vies are backed by (Amber, 2000). Both Heath and Amber suggest that advertising produces connection between brand names and consumer qualities; this association affects your choice making process (Rose). These views are reinforced by (Ethrenberg, 2001)
Thus the brands who already are established and have many dedicated consumers use a encouragement or repeat purchasing habit which has already developed in the trial process which is often recognized by the exemplory case of one of the best viewed advertising of coke cola which got 2 million views through the planet. The ad symbolizes is dependant on factual settings where "Happy Machine" in students cafe offers, if asked for just one container of coke, a pizza or a huge burger or 10 containers of cokes, fascinating all the students / consumers in the cafe. Now here such a brandname which is already known in depends upon will not needs persuasion but is reinforcing its occurrence and nudging the consumers to buy it whenever they see a cola machine.
In today's world both of the theories imply of they have gone absolute in the quick changing consumer focused times of today. The strong advertising is focused in changing the attitudes of the consumers where as the weakened theory focuses on reinforcing the previous attitude. These can only be measurable with the increase in sales but nonetheless are extremely ambiguous and obscure.
Supporters of strong theory use advertising as the best way to change buyer's attitude by installation of product specific features, personality and differentiation. Though in question it seem to be possible that consumer can turn of their old products to the new advertised product, which though vary from a predicament to situation but yet is very difficult as said "old behaviors expire hard".
The models in such as AIDA does not put into bank account the computation of commitment or romance with a consumer was previous existent, it takes every step as an individual component, dealing with each sale as a aim for, creating its recognition and attention and then finally closing the deal ( this model was firstly created as a sale's training model; Strong, 1925). There is no hint in AIDA that some kind of loyalty or relationship might at any stage are suffering from, weather as a convenient habit, liking after use of some deeper dedication nor does AIDA mention your competition (Monye, 1991).
But in the example quoted above of Barclays that provides something other banks aren't offering has given a competitive benefits and would drive the consumers to leave other banks and open their accounts in it because of their tax-free personal savings, thus the advertisement might change the perception and influence the consumers which would switch them to a new brand to which the loyalty stimuli depends on the tax-free offers. As argued in the Strong Theory that this factor would maintain the previous customers to remain loyal and pursue the clients to change.
On the other side both Heath and Amber ( 2000, 2001) both dispute that Hierarchy of of Effect is a very simplistic description of an extremely complicated behavior and folks do not necessarily take decisions in their earlier manner and are extremely unstable (Jones, 1991). They also argue that a big quantity of advertising by less differentiation is performed by the major brands or which already are very famous thus need not emphasis on recognition, keeping these into account a natural human being behavior mainly responds to the old practices thus the persuasion is highly improbable.
But unlike that while buying some product of which the ad is being displayed makes the consumer watch it more carefully, thus the information stored previously, or currently makes us take into account the new information given to what had been stored before.
In the weakened and strong theory argument one of the main factors to be reviewed are of product differentiation of a fresh product or the old products, where the scenario changes, if it's a fresh product which is contending to the other brands which curently have a mature market, they might try to use the more strong approach to advertising however the one's who already are on the market would use the vulnerable theory, as almost all of the consumers are already familiar with the product and have used it or years, and some persuasive adverts cannot make them proceed to this new brand which is different, thus the ads would target reusing it and getting into the same behavior.
Week Advertising
Explanation
Examples
Discussion Models
Arguments based on examples ( new )
Strong Conclusion
