The Development of the Hierarchy of Effects: An Historical Perspective

Just what constitutes advertising effectiveness is often a topic of heated debate. “Bottom-liners ” contend that advertising is effective only when it sells. Communication advocates, however, suggest that there is a series of stages between the point of unawareness of a product and/or brand and the ultimate purchase/sale of a particular brand. Proponents in each of these two camps rarely agree on a middle road. The body of work in the marketing and advertis-ing literature that relates to this advertising effectiveness controversy is called the hierarchy of effects and has been accorded theoretical status by many advertising and marketing practitioners and academics. However, as Tauber [1982--83] noted, there are several different classes of advertising them-y and, in ““ light of this fact, researchers really must,... take a step back to review theories about how advertising works. If we had a thorough review, we might see that the appropriate research meas-ures flowed from the objectives of each advertising situation (p. 7). On the other hand, Ramond [1976] has argued that advertising has no general theory that is widely accepted but rather the field is a collection of