L17: Response Hierarchy Models

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Lecture 17 of MGA-304. Last class we built our foundation in communication theory — the Shannon-Weaver model, encoding and decoding, the field of experience, and semiotics. Today we move to Response Hierarchy Models, which answer a slightly different question: given that a consumer receives an advertising message, what happens next? What sequence of mental steps does a consumer go through before eventually buying a product? [0–10 min: Introduction] Let me start with a thought experiment. Imagine it is five years ago and you had never heard of Zomato. One day you see their advertisement on television — a funny, relatable ad showing a hungry person late at night. That is your first exposure. You do not immediately download the app. But a seed is planted. A week later you see a Zomato hoarding. You see their Instagram ad. A friend mentions they ordered from Zomato. Gradually, you develop a positive feeling toward the brand. One night, you are hungry and too tired to cook. You remember Zomato, you download the app, and you order for the first time. The next day you use it again. Six months later, Zomato is your default food delivery app. That journey — from total unawareness to habitual usage — is what response hierarchy models describe. They give advertisers a map of the consumer's mind and, critically, they tell advertisers what kind of communication is needed at each stage. At the awareness stage, you need reach and frequency. At the interest and knowledge stage, you need information. At the preference stage, you need emotional resonance. At the trial stage, you might need a promotional offer. Different tools for different stages. [10–40 min: Core Content] Let us go through the major models. The first and most famous is the AIDA model — Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. AIDA was articulated by E. St. Elmo Lewis in 1898 and it remains, over 125 years later, one of the most widely used frameworks in marketing. Its endurance is a testament to its elegant simplicity. Attention: The advertisement must first capture the consumer's attention. In today's media-saturated environment, this is the hardest step. Amul's topical hoardings capture attention because they are witty and unexpected. Zomato's social media posts capture attention because they are funny and culturally relevant. Without attention, the rest of the sequence never begins. Interest: Having captured attention, the advertisement must generate interest in the product or brand. The consumer moves from 'I noticed that' to 'I am curious about that.' Interest is generated by relevance — the message must connect to the consumer's needs, values, or aspirations. Surf Excel generates interest by tapping into every Indian parent's emotional investment in their child's development. Desire: Interest must be transformed into desire — a want or preference for the brand. At this stage, the consumer begins to think 'I want that' or 'that brand is better than the alternatives.' Emotional advertising is particularly powerful at the desire stage. When Cadbury shows the girl dancing on the cricket field, and the feeling of pure joy is associated with Dairy Milk, that creates desire — an emotional pull toward the brand that transcends rational product comparison. Action: Finally, the consumer must be moved to action — a purchase, a store visit, a website click, a call to a dealer. Action is triggered by both the cumulative effect of advertising and by point-of-sale stimuli, promotional offers, and personal selling. The AIDA model's great contribution is the insight that advertising must accomplish different things at different stages. A single advertisement cannot always do everything — it cannot build awareness, explain product benefits, create emotional connection, and trigger immediate purchase all in thirty seconds. This is why IMC plans use a combination of tools across the consumer journey. The second major model is the Hierarchy of Effects model, developed by Lavidge and Steiner in 1961. It has six stages: Awareness, Knowledge, Liking, Preference, Conviction, and Purchase. Awareness and Knowledge are cognitive stages — they involve thinking and knowing. Liking and Preference are affective stages — they involve feeling and evaluating. Conviction and Purchase are conative stages — they involve intention and action. This cognitive-affective-conative sequence is called the 'learn-feel-do' hierarchy and it assumes that consumers rationally evaluate a product before buying it — think, then feel, then act. This model works well for high-involvement purchases like cars, jewellery, insurance, or real estate — products where consumers do extensive research and deliberation. When Tanishq advertises, they are trying to move consumers through all six stages: first making them aware of the new collection, then building knowledge about its craftsmanship, then generating liking through beautiful visual presentation, then building preference over other jewellery brands, then conviction that Tanishq is the right choice, and finally the purchase visit to the store. The third model is the Innovation Adoption model by Everett Rogers, 1962. This describes how new products diffuse through a society. It identifies five stages: Awareness, Interest, Evaluation, Trial, and Adoption. It is particularly relevant for new product launches. When a brand like ITC launches a new snack product — say a new flavour of Bingo chips — the communication challenge is to move consumers from unawareness through to adoption. Trial is the critical stage in FMCG — getting consumers to try the product once is the hardest part, after which the product's quality takes over. The fourth important model is the Information Processing model developed by William McGuire in 1968. McGuire added complexity to the hierarchy by suggesting that for a message to have effect, it must pass through six sequential steps: Presentation, Attention, Comprehension, Yielding, Retention, and Behaviour. The value of McGuire's model is that it identifies failure points. Many advertisements are presented but never attended to. Some are attended to but not comprehended. Some are comprehended but not yielded to — meaning the consumer understands the message but is not persuaded by it. And even if they are persuaded, they may not retain it until the moment of purchase. Each stage is a potential break in the chain. Now, I must introduce an important critique of all these models. They all assume that communication follows a linear, sequential path — think first, then feel, then act. This is sometimes called the Standard Learning Hierarchy. But research by Herbert Krugman and later by scholars of consumer behaviour showed that this does not always happen. For low-involvement purchases — things like biscuits, soap, or soft drinks — the sequence is often reversed: consumers act first — they buy and try the product impulsively or out of habit — then form feelings and beliefs afterward. This is called the Low-Involvement Hierarchy: learn a little, do, then feel. For highly emotional or impulsive purchases — a piece of jewellery seen at a Diwali sale, a concert ticket, a fashionable clothing item — the sequence is feel first, then do, then learn. This is called the Experiential Hierarchy. Understanding which hierarchy is operating for your product category is critical for designing the right communication strategy. Cadbury Dairy Milk operates in the experiential hierarchy — the decision to buy a chocolate is emotional and impulse-driven, not rational. So Cadbury's advertising correctly focuses on pure emotional resonance rather than product information. [40–55 min: Activity and Discussion] Activity time. I want you to work in pairs. For each of the following products, identify which hierarchy is most likely operating — Standard Learning (think-feel-do), Low-Involvement (learn-do-feel), or Experiential (feel-do-learn) — and identify what stage in the AIDA model most advertising for this product should target. Product one: A new model of Honda motorcycle priced at Rs. 1.5 lakhs. High involvement, significant financial decision. Standard learning hierarchy. Most advertising should focus on the knowledge, liking, and preference stages — providing information and building emotional appeal. Product two: Parle-G biscuits. Low involvement, habitual purchase. Low-involvement hierarchy. Most advertising should focus on attention and keeping top-of-mind — reminding consumers the brand exists at the moment of purchase. Product three: Fastrack watches targeting college students. Experiential hierarchy. The purchase is about identity and self-expression. Advertising should focus on desire — creating an image and emotional identity that the consumer wants to associate with. Product four: Tanishq wedding jewellery. Standard learning hierarchy but with strong affective component. Consumers do extensive research but are also highly emotionally engaged. Advertising needs to do everything — build awareness, knowledge, liking, and aspiration simultaneously. Discussion question: Zomato's advertising is extremely funny and non-informational. You rarely see a Zomato ad that tells you what restaurants are available or what the delivery time is. Why do you think they have made this creative strategy choice? Which hierarchy and which stage of the hierarchy does their advertising address? The answer is the experiential hierarchy and the desire or liking stage. Food delivery is an emotionally driven, somewhat impulsive purchase. Zomato wants to be the brand you associate with pleasure, humour, and cultural relevance — not the brand you rationally evaluate on delivery time metrics. The functional information is on the app; the advertising's job is to make you feel good about Zomato. [55–60 min: Summary and Assignment] Let us recap. We covered four Response Hierarchy Models: AIDA, the Hierarchy of Effects, the Innovation Adoption model, and McGuire's Information Processing model. All describe sequential stages from awareness to purchase. We learned the three hierarchies: Standard Learning for high-involvement products, Low-Involvement for routine purchases, and Experiential for emotionally driven choices. We saw why the hierarchy matters for creative strategy using Cadbury, Tanishq, Zomato, and Parle-G as examples. Assignment: Pick any one current Indian advertising campaign — from television or digital. Write a one-page analysis identifying which response hierarchy model best describes the consumer journey for this product, and evaluate whether the advertising is targeting the right stage of the hierarchy. Support your argument with specific observations about the creative content. Next class — Lecture 18 — we will look at Involvement and Cognitive Processing — the FCB Grid and the Elaboration Likelihood Model — which give us even greater nuance about how consumers process advertising messages differently depending on how engaged they are. See you then.