Russell Colley (1961) developed a model for setting advertising objectives and measuring the results. This model was entitled ‘Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results- DAGMAR.’ DAGMAR model suggests that the ultimate objective of advertising must carry a consumer through four levels of understanding: from unawareness to Awareness — the the consumer must first be aware of a brand or company Comprehension — Comprehension — he he or she must have a comprehension of what the product is and its benefits; Conviction — Conviction — he he or she must arrive at the mental disposition or conviction to buys the brand; Action — Action — finally, finally, he or she actually buy that product.
Awareness Awareness of the existence of a product or organization is necessary before the purchase behavior can be expected. Once the awareness has been created in the target audience, it should not be neglected. If there is neglect, the audience may become distracted by competing messages and the level of awareness of focus product or organization will decline. Awareness needs to be created, developed, refined or sustained, according to the characteristics of the market and the particular situation facing an organization at any one point of time. Awareness grid
Involvement
HIGH
High
Low
Sustain current levels of awareness
Refine awareness
Build awareness quickly.
Create association of awareness of product with product class need
Awareness
LOW
In situations where:
Buyer experiences high involvement:
Is fully aware of a product’s existence, attention and awareness levels need only be sustained and efforts need to be applied to other communication tasks. sales promotion and personal selling are more effective at informing, persuading and provoking consumption of a new car once advertising has created the necessary levels of awareness. The LG golden eye ads that are repeatedly shown inspite of high awareness to ensure top of mind awareness and retain the existing awareness levels. Where low levels of awareness are found, getting attention needs to be the prime objective in order that awareness can be developed among the target audience. Sahara Homes ad that features Amitabh Bachhan saying ― jaha base Bharat‖. Awareness level is low, however it is a high involvement decision. Thus adequate attention is required and awareness levels are raised with use of well-known and trusted celebrities. Buyer experiences low involvement:
If buyers have sufficient level of awareness, they will be quickly prompted into purchase with little assistance of the other elements of the mix. Recognition and brand image may be felt by some to be sufficient triggers to stimulate a response. The requirement in such a situation would be to refine and strengthen the level of awareness so that it provokes interest and stimulates greater involvement during recall or recognition. Parle G ad that talks about it being the largest seller “ Duniya ka sabse Zyada bikne waala biscuit”. Parle G as a brand already enjoys high levels of awareness and requires low involvement decision, thus communication is mainly intended to refine awareness. If buyers have low level of awareness, the prime objective has to be to create awareness of the focus product in association with the product class. When coils were popular in use and then the different repellants entered the market, awareness had to be created about their benefits and use.
Comprehension
Awareness on its own may not be sufficient to stimulate a purchase. Knowledge about the product or the organization is necessary. This can be achieved by providing specific information about key brand attributes. In attempting to persuade people to try a different brand of water, it may be necessary to compare the product with other mineral water products and provide an additional usage benefit, such as claims of pristine natural qualities. The ad of Himalayan Natural Mineral Water. Conviction
The next step is to establish a sense of conviction. By creating interest and preference, buyers are moved to a position where they are convinced that a particular product in the class should be tried at the next opportunity. To do this, audience’s beliefs about the product have to be moulded and this is often done through messages that demonstrate the product’s superiority over a rival or by talking about the rewards as a result of using the product. Many ads like Thumbs Up featured the reward of social acceptance as „grown up‟. It almost hinted that those who preferred other drinks were kids. Action
Communication must finally encourage buyers to engage in purchase activity. Advertising can be directive and guide the buyers into certain behavioural outcomes, Use of toll free numbers, direct mail activities and reply cards and coupons. Tupperware, Aqua Guard, are famous in Indian cities as a result of its personal selling efforts.
For high involvement decisions, the most effective tool in the communication mix at this stage in the hierarchy is personal selling. Through the use of interpersonal skills, buyers are more likely to want to buy a product than if personal prompting is absent. Characteristics of Objectives
A major contribution of DAGMAR was Colley’s specification of what constitutes a good objective. Four requirements or characteristics of good objectives were noted Concrete and measurable — the communications task or objective should be a precise statement of what appeal or message the advertiser wants to communicate to the target audience. Furthermore the specification should include a description of the measurement procedure
Target audience – a key tenet to DAGMAR is that the target audience be well defined. For example – if the goal was to increase awareness, it is essential to know the target audience precisely. The benchmark measure cannot be developed without a specification of the target segment Benchmark and degree of change sought — another important part of setting objectives is having benchmark measures to determine where the target audience stands at the beginning of the campaign with respect to various communication response variables such as awareness, knowledge, attitudes, image, etc. The objectives should also specify how much change or movement is being sought such as increase in awareness levels, creation of favorable attitudes or number of consumers intending to purchase the brand, etc. a benchmark is also a prerequisite to the ultimate measurement of results, an essential part of any planning program and DAGMAR in particular. Specified time period — a final characteristic of good objectives is the specification of the time period during which the objective is to be accomplished, e.g. 6months, 1 year etc. With a time period specified a survey to generate a set if measures can be planned and anticipated. Written Goal - finally goals should be committed to paper. When the goals are clearly written, basic shortcomings and misunderstandings become exposed and it becomes easy to determine whether the goal contains the crucial aspects of the DAGMAR approach.
AIDA model was presented by Elmo Lewis to explain how personal selling works. It shows a set of stair-step stages which describe the process leading a potential customer to purchase.
The stages, Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action, form a linear hierarchy.
It demonstrates that consumers must be aware of a product's existence,
Be interested enough to pay attention to the product's features/benefits, and
Have a desire to benefit from the product's offerings.
Action, the fourth stage, would come as a natural result of movement through the first three stages. Although this idea was rudimentary, it led to the later emerging field of consumer behavior research.
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 starcaste, 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
Hierarchy-of-Effects Model Among advertising theories, the hierarchy-of-effects model is predominant. It shows clear steps of how advertising works. Hierarchy of effects Model can be explained with the help of a pyramid. First the lower level objectives such as awareness, knowledge or comprehension are accomplished. Subsequent objectives may focus on moving prospects to higher levels in the pyramid to elicit desired behavioral responses such as associating feelings with the brand, trial, or regular use etc. it is easier to accomplish ad objectives located at the base of the pyramid than the ones towards the top. The percentage of prospective customers will decline as they move up the pyramid towards more action oriented objectives, such as regular brand use.
Awareness: If most of the target audience is unaware of the object, the communicator’s task is to build awareness, perhaps just name recognition, with simple messages repeating the product name. Consumers must become aware of the brand. This isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Capturing someone’s attention doesn’t mean they will notice the brand name. Thus, the brand name needs to be made focal to get consumers to become aware. Magazines are full of ads that will capture your attention,
but
you’ll
have
trouble
easily
seeing
the
brand
name.
Knowledge: The target audience might have product awareness but not know much more; hence this stage involves creating brand knowledge. This is where comprehension of the brand name and what it stands for become important. What are the brand’s specific appeals, its benefits? In what way is it different than competitor’s brands? Who is the target market? These are the types of questions that must be answered if consumers are to achieve the step of brand knowledge.
Liking: If target members know the product, how do they feel about it? If the audience looks unfavourably towards the product to communicator has to find out why. If the unfavorable view is based on real problems, a communication campaigns alone cannot do the job. For product problem it is necessary to first fix the problem and only then can you communicate its renewed quality.
Preference: The target audience might like the product but not prefer it to others. In this case, the communicator must try to build consumer preference by promoting quality, value, performance and other features. The communicator can check the campaigns success by measuring audience preference before and after the campaign.
Conviction: A target audience might prefer a particular product but not develop a conviction about buying it. The communicator’s job is to build conviction among the target audience.
Purchase: Finally, some members of the target audience might have conviction but not quite get around to making the purchase. They may wait for more information or plan to act later. The communicator must need these consumers to take the final step, perhaps by offering the product at a low price, offering a premium, or letting consumers tried out. This is where consumers make a move to actually search out information or purchase. Thus advertising is thought to work and follow a certain sequence whereby the prospect is moved through a series of stages in succession from unawareness to the purchase of the product. Advertising cannot induce immediate behavioural response, rather a series of mental effects must occur with the fulfillment at each stage before progress to the next stage is possible.
