Abstract
Nowadays, advertising is pervasive. From the moment people wake up until the moment they fall asleep they are bombarded with all kinds of advertisements. Ads appear on the TV and radio, on billboards, newspapers and magazines, on the Internet. Considering this, Tellis (2004) implies that advertising plays an important role in our economy and society. He also arouses the questions – Does advertising really work? Is it a weak or strong force? Is it just a background noise or does it have a great influence on people's minds? The purpose of this essay is to discuss the main theories of ‘how advertising works' in order to give answers to these questions.
First it will discuss the two schools of advertising – strong and weak. This will be achieved by elaborating different expert views and presenting the effect modules that support and explain the two schools. Then, one of the modules will be applied to a current advertising campaign in order to analyse advertising in the 21st century. Jones (1990) claims that advertising is a strong force that has a great influence on people and positive impact on sales.
He believes that advertising can convince people to buy a particular product. Jones suggests that advertising is a strong promotional tool that works by: ”persuading people to buy, creating and building brands, differentiating between brands and increasing sales” ( Jones, In Pickton & Broderick, 2005:599). However, Ehrenberg et al (1997) sees advertising as a weak force. He argues that advertising cannot persuade people to buy a product or use a service but only reinforces already existing habits, defends companies from losing market share and maintains brands.
