AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. That is a model that is used in marketing to describe the potential journey a customer might go through before purchasing a product or service. The AIDA model helps organizations focus their efforts when optimizing their marketing activities based on the customers’ journeys.
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The background story of the AIDA model
In the late 1800s, an advertising man, E. St. Elmo Lewis, explained:
The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that when he has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful
advertisement.
From this first draft, other advertising pioneers, from Joseph Addison Richards to Fred Macey, Frank Hutchinson Dukesmith, and others.
Indeed if today in sales, we like to call it a funnel, and it looks something like that:
Back then, it was called a scale, and it seemed something like that:
Source: dragon360.com
The acronym AIDA was finally used in 1921 in a publication called Printers Ink, wherein “How to Write a Sales-Making Letter” by C.P.
An easy way to remember this formula is to call in the “law of association,” which is the old reliable among memory aids. It is to be noted that, reading downward, the first letters of these words spell the opera “Aida.” When you start a letter, then, say “Aida” to yourself and you won’t go far wrong, at least as far as the form of your letter is concerned.
The message was clear. For an advertising message to work out, it had to “lift” a certain weight of the potential customer’s attention and interest before it could become a sale.
Therefore, the AIDA model was supposed to give a clear framework to advertisers on how to carry the interest of a potential customer to become a sale.
Thus, the AIDA model was the progenitor of the sales funnel.
What makes up a basic AIDA model? Primarily four phases:
Attention.
Interest.
Desire.
Action.
Let’s look at each of them.
Attention
Since the dome of mass media, advertisers have fought for the conquest of a scarce asset: people’s attention.
Any good salesperson knows this is the first step to take before it would even be possible to introduce the perspective of a sale.
Advertisers first, and marketers, later on, have learned how to grab the attention of potential customers before they could be presented with the option of completing a sale.
Attention is the first step of the AIDA, and it’s critical to kick off the model and transform a non-linear journey of a potential customer into a linear path.
Indeed, the AIDA model is definitely a simplification of the path and journey that customers take to get to know our brand (attention is very fragmented, and often users/customers get to know brands in many different ways).
Yet, it’s still a good method as it forces the brand to think of controlled paths for the customers to get to know the brand.
Interest
In the AIDA model, the second step or phase is interest.
A salesperson knows that before a sale can be closed, attention must be kept by understanding what motivates the other party.
Maintaining the level of interest in the prospect is another critical step in the AIDA model.
This is a critical step as you go from attention, which is the trigger and the hook, to something a bit more valuable, as now you have – almost – the change to drive action.
But before you can drive action, you need another key ingredient.
Desire
Once attention is captured and interest is maintained, the salesperson has to generate excitement.
This phase is critical, as the salesperson has to bridge the gap between action and interest before closing a deal.
Desire is critical to enable action as it’s very easy in the first two steps (attention and interest) to lose the potential customer.
In fact, at this stage, you have not yet built enough momentum to steer action unless you make sure there is desire.
Only once you have created desire can you lead to the last step!
Action
That is when the transaction gets completed, and the sale happens.
Salespeople can trigger action by using several psychological levers, like scarcity, price, or else.
At this stage, another key component is trust.
However, initially desire works as a substitute for trust because the customer doesn’t know you yet.
In short, over time, as you build a solid relationship (especially for a business model which relies on repeated purchases like subscription-based ones), you have time to build trust, which is much more organic and slow to achieve successfully.
Yet, in the short-term, desire works as a substitute for trust, as it steers actions and works as a hook.
However, it’s critical to recognize that while desire is a short-term hook, over time, you want to build trust through product quality, proactive support, continuous service updates, and more.
Those are the things that will transform desire into trust, and that will lead – from a short-term transactional relationship – to a long-term trust-based relationship.
Does AIDA still make sense today?
The problem with the AIDA model is that it assumes we live in a linear world, where people take deliberate steps before completing a transaction.
The linear model of communication is a relatively simplistic model envisaging a process in which a sender encodes and transmits a message that is received and decoded by a recipient. The linear model of communication suggests communication moves in one direction only. The sender transmits a message to the receiver, but the receiver does not transmit a response or provide feedback to the sender.
This is true for all types of models that academics or practitioners use.
However, the world is way more unpredictable, and the path people take before they become customers is hard to define in most cases.
On the other hand, a model should have a specific function – I argue – which is allowing the focus on whoever is using it.
In short, practitioners should never fool themselves into believing that the world follows the model she uses.
Indeed, my main argument is that an effective communication strategy informs itself based on context, format (for that specific context), and scale (how large is the audience vs. how niche is that?).
An effective communication strategy starts with a clear brand identity by defining clear boundaries and compromises your brand will not take in the marketplace. Based on that, understanding whether context, formats, and scale are in line with your business message to prevent a loss of identity.
But, she should use an AIDA model to focus the effort on specific actions to improve efficacy.
In addition, the AIDA model might be unrealistic in many circumstances and inappropriate for certain selling forms.
The virtuous cycle is a positive loop or a set of positive loops that trigger non-linear growth. Indeed, in the context of digital platforms, virtuous cycles – also defined as flywheel models – help companies capture more market shares by accelerating growth. The classic example is Amazon’s lower prices driving more consumers, driving more sellers, thus improving variety and convenience, thus accelerating growth.
This brings us to the post-AIDA models.
The post-AIDA models
To overcome some of the significant drawbacks of the AIDA model (such as not taking into account what happens after the sale), a few variations of the AIDA model have sprouted up.
Some of them are the AIDCAS (where satisfaction and confidence are added to the AIDA MODEL); or the CAB (cognition, affect, and behavior) Model, which is the psychological equivalent of the AIDA model.
AIDCAS Model
In the AIDCAS model, you get two additional elements to inform the communication strategy, which serves as a way to reinforce the funnel:
Confidence
During the AIDA funnel, it might be effective – in some cases – to try to lead a potential customer from a desire to action.
However, in the short-term generating desire might be enough to kick off the relationship.
Oftentimes (especially for the more complex products), before an action takes place, you might need an additional element of confidence.
Indeed, we cannot ask the person now getting to know the brand to trust us yet.
We want to give them the confidence that they can start trusting us. How? For instance, for some products, that might happen by giving things like a satisfaction guarantee or free trials.
Those things that make it a no-brainer, on the other hand, and give the confidence of the potential customer that you know your product/service is so good that they will love it for sure.
Of course, your promise must be honest and not just a sales pitch to make this lead to a long-term relationship based on trust.
This is how you build trust, even before the action is taken!
Satisfaction
Once the action has been taken, this is your change to complete the circle of trust by ensuring the customer is satisfied with the offering.
This is a way to close the loop to – finally – start building trust.
Indeed, while, as we saw in the previous steps, you’re leveraging on promises based on desires and confidence to lead to action, now you have the chance to build that trust based on the real satisfaction of the customer.
This step is critical to start building a longer-term relationship, which either might lead to word-of-mouth (the customer will tell others about your product), repeat purchases, or both!
Thus, as we saw in the first steps of the AIDCAS model, you can leverage perception to lead to action.
Yet, once the customer is in to experience the product/service, you need to ensure that those psychological levers align with the actual product experience.
In this way, you build trust, and you close the loop of a relationship that can last for a long-time!
Whatever sales model you decide to pick, it is essential to remark that they help salespeople and marketers to focus their effort!
CAB Model
The CAM model simply organizes the AIDA model into three areas: cognition, affect, and behavior.
This is also a useful way to address the AIDA model, as it helps you understand at which stage you are in the journey of a potential customer.
And whether the customer is ready for action (behavior) or if she/he is still in the cognition, and affect stage.
Understanding the psychological circumstances of the potential customer is critical also to creating empathy, which is a core tenet of building a solid funnel.
AIDA model examples
What are some real-world examples of the AIDA model in action? Let’s take a look.
The Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola follows a business strategy (implemented since 2006) where through its operating arm – the Bottling Investment Group – it invests initially in bottling partners’ operations. As they take off, Coca-Cola divests its equity stakes, and it establishes a franchising model, as long-term growth and distributionstrategy.
Marketers at The Coca-Cola Company are masters at utilizing the AIDA model to the company’s financial advantage. Below is a general overview of how this is achieved:
Attention
While the Coca-Cola brand is one of the most recognized in the world, the company nevertheless promotes its products across a variety of online and offline mediums such as social media, cinemas, sports games, events, and billboards.
In fact, Coca-Cola spends around $4 billion each year to attract the attention of consumers.
Interest
As consumers shift toward healthier drink options, Coca-Cola espouses the benefits of beverages such as Coke Zero and Diet Coke by highlighting their ingredients.
The company likes to point out that its low-calorie drinks do not come at the expense of the great taste consumers expect.
Desire
Once Coca-Cola has a consumer interested in its products, it may for example outline that they can continue to drink it without putting on weight.
Many marketing campaigns show casual, young, trendy consumers drinking Coca-Cola beverages and having fun with their friends.
These consumers embody the company’s core brand values and resonate with that innate human need to fit in.
Action
In its “Share a Coke” campaign, the company featured a powerful call to action urging consumers to purchase a drink and share their good times with friends and family on social media.
The call to action was short, punchy, memorable, and most importantly, convincing.
Lincoln
Lincoln is a luxury vehicle division of American automaker Ford. In this second example, let’s dissect one of its recent marketing campaigns in terms of the AIDA model:
Attention
In a 2019 ad campaign for the Lincoln Nautilus, the company worked with Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey.
The actor, who makes regular appearances in Lincoln promotions, immediately catches the attention of consumers as he starts to tell a story to friends seated around a pool.
Suspenseful music plays in the background.
Interest
Consumers are sucked into watching the advertisement as the combination of McConaughey, the music, and the cinematography results in a production quality that is more reminiscent of a movie trailer.
Desire
As the social gathering comes to an end, McConaughey passes a pool table on the way to his car.
Footage of him playing trick shots is interspliced with driving the Nautilus as its numerous features are listed on the instrument panel.
None of these features are explained in any detail, with the sequence simply ending with the tagline “Technology that helps put you in control”.
As McConaughey plays the white ball in an arc around the 8-ball, viewers are presented with a metaphor for the Nautilus’s ability to evade obstacles in the roadway and return to its original path.
Action
Lincoln then introduces the Lincoln Nautilus and its Co-Pilot360 package.
This package consists of a suite of driver-assist features that ties the promotional campaign together and encourages consumers to either visit the Lincoln website or one of its dealerships.
Nike
In this AIDA model example, let’s revisit Nike in the context of its “Just Do It” advertisements which debuted in 1988 and have since evolved to stay relevant to consumers.
Attention
The statement “Just Do It” captures the attention of consumers because it is short and memorable. But it is also relevant, approachable, and vague enough that anyone can apply it to whatever it is they aspire to do.
Nike also attracts attention in other ways. In an ad celebrating 30 years since the campaign was released, the company featured athletes such as LeBron James, Serena Williams, and Colin Kaepernick.
The inclusion of Kaepernick was somewhat controversial because of his divisive views on social justice, but it nevertheless caused consumers to pay attention to the brand.
Nike attracted further attention when an ad featuring Kaepernick won an award at the Creative Arts Emmys. In the ad, the NFL quarterback uttered the slogan: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Just do it.”
Interest
Once Nike has captured the attention of customers, the company strives to generate interest in its products, showcase its brand values, and encourage them to live an active lifestyle.
One of the ways the company does this is by associating its products with athletes who champion social causes or tell inspirational stories.
In October 2018, Nike offered a three-year contract to a runner with cerebral palsy called Justin Gallegos. To create further brand interest, the collaboration was announced to coincide with World Cerebral Palsy Day.
Later, Nike released the Dream Crazier campaign to shine a spotlight on female athletes. Narrated by Serena Williams, the ad encourages women to show emotion in sports and ends with the statement: “Show them what crazy can do. It’s only crazy until you do it. Just do it.”
Desire
The next step in the AIDA process is to create desire which Nike does in numerous ways.
While Nike sells products and considers them an important marketing tool, what it actually sells is aspiration. The “Just Do It” advertisements project an image of strength, passion, and determination to consumers who feel empowered to embody those traits themselves.
As a consequence, Nike’s advertisements rarely mention the products themselves. The company is instead a master at crafting campaigns that evoke particular emotions and needs that the consumer can only satisfy by making a purchase.
Action
Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan not only attracts the attention of consumers; it also compels them to take action. As we touched on earlier, the slogan is extremely versatile since “it” can represent any sport, activity, or pursuit the company sells products for.
Nike also compels its consumers to take action via scarcity marketing. The company sells limited quantities of sneakers (most often in luxury collaborations) to take advantage of sneaker culture and the exclusivity associated with owning a limited edition product.
On social media, Nike is also a liberal user of the #JustDoIt hashtag when it interacts with customers. In this context, users are encouraged to tackle challenges with Nike products and share their journeys with the company.
Other business tools and frameworks
Over the decades several business tools have been used and developed by practitioners to enable deliberate decision-making processes within an organization.
Let’s explore some other tools you might leverage on at a strategic level.
A business model is a framework for finding a systematic way to unlock long-term value for an organization while delivering value to customers and capturing value through monetization strategies. A business model is a holistic framework to understand, design, and test your business assumptions in the marketplace.
You can use the Ansoff Matrix as a strategic framework to understand what growthstrategy is more suited based on the market context. Developed by mathematician and business manager Igor Ansoff, it assumes a growthstrategy can be derived by whether the market is new or existing, and the product is new or existing.
In the FourWeekMBA growth matrix, you can apply growth for existing customers by tackling the same problems (gain mode). Or by tackling existing problems, for new customers (expand mode). Or by tackling new problems for existing customers (extend mode). Or perhaps by tackling the whole new problems for new customers (reinvent mode).
A one-page business plan is a simple tool to clear your mind. It focuses on three questions: What core problem am I solving? Who are my potential key customers? Where do I find them? It helps define the problem, profile the key customer, and find the key distribution channel.
Venture capitalist, Dave McClure, coined the acronym AARRR which is a simplified model that enables us to understand what metrics and channels to look at, at each stage for the users’ path toward becoming customers and referrers of a brand.
A SWOT Analysis is a framework used for evaluating the business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It can aid in identifying the problematic areas of your business so that you can maximize your opportunities. It will also alert you to the challenges your organization might face in the future.
The PESTEL analysis is a framework that can help marketers assess whether macro-economic factors are affecting an organization. This is a critical step that helps organizations identify potential threats and weaknesses that can be used in other frameworks such as SWOT or to gain a broader and better understanding of the overall marketing environment.
A comparable company analysis is a process that enables the identification of similar organizations to be used as a comparison to understand the business and financial performance of the target company. To find comparables you can look at two key profiles: the business and financial profile. From the comparable company analysis it is possible to understand the competitive landscape of the target organization.
Porter’s Five Forces is a model that helps organizations to gain a better understanding of their industries and competition. Published for the first time by Professor Michael Porter in his book “Competitive Strategy” in the 1980s. The model breaks down industries and markets by analyzing them through five forces
Is the AIDA model still relevant today?
The AIDA Model and the business tools shown in this article while a useful exercise for strategic thinking, are losing relevance nowadays.
That’s because with the advent of the digital, doing business did change its nature, and it did follow a different playbook.
The Amazon Flywheel or Amazon Virtuous Cycle is a strategy that leverages on customer experience to drive traffic to the platform and third-party sellers. That improves the selections of goods, and Amazon further improves its cost structure so it can decrease prices which spins the flywheel.
One of the ways to understand how the business world has changed is through the Amazon Flywheel Model.
In the old world, large corporations might be able to control massive resources centrally, thus preventing other businesses to enter a space. In short, by controlling and leveraging on the supply side they could keep their competitive positioning for a longer time. That implied a more linear logic of business, where it might have been easier to spot competitors.
As we moved to a digital age, bottom-up forces brought the business world to become way more unpredictable. Thus, the competition itself becoming nonlinear. Today your competitor might be coming from a place you would never expect.
That is why if you’re building a digital platform business, but also if you’re riding the wave of a large platform business (think of how many small businesses are powered by Amazon, Google, Facebook, and many other platforms) it is important to understand those businesses in terms of network effects.
Those network effects can be triggered by understanding that a competitive advantage can be created by focusing on customer experience and leveling that up.
It is important to highlight that business changes in nature as new ecosystems and mass adopted technologies become more accessible.
For instance, if you think about how coming developments like voice-enabled devices, IoT, digital twins, and others will break further the technological divide (when access to a certain technology is unevenly distributed) more and more people will be able to join in, thus enhancing this wave.
As other technologies like the Blockchain might become commercially viable to consumers, those might reshuffle again the playground and the rules of the game, thus making the nature of competition change with it!
Key Highlights
AIDA Model: The AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) is a marketing framework used to describe the potential journey a customer might go through before purchasing a product or service.
Historical Background: The AIDA model originated in the late 1800s with advertising pioneer E. St. Elmo Lewis, who described the mission of an advertisement to attract, interest, and convince a reader. The acronym “AIDA” was first used in 1921 in a publication called Printers Ink.
Four Phases of AIDA: The AIDA model consists of four primary phases: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. These phases guide marketers in creating a clear path for potential customers to become actual buyers.
Attention: Capturing a potential customer’s attention is the initial step. Advertisers and marketers use various methods to grab attention in a world full of distractions.
Interest: After gaining attention, maintaining interest becomes crucial. Marketers need to understand what motivates the potential customer to keep them engaged.
Desire: Once attention and interest are captured, generating excitement and desire for the product or service is essential. Desire bridges the gap between interest and action.
Action: The final step is to lead the potential customer to take action, such as making a purchase. This involves psychological triggers like scarcity and price, along with building trust over time.
Limitations of AIDA: The AIDA model assumes a linear journey, which is unrealistic in today’s non-linear and unpredictable world. The path to purchase can be complex and varies greatly among individuals.
Post-AIDA Models: Variations like AIDCAS (adding Confidence and Satisfaction) and the CAB Model (Cognition, Affect, Behavior) were introduced to address AIDA’s limitations and account for factors after the sale.
Amazon Flywheel: The Flywheel model, exemplified by Amazon’s strategy, emphasizes customer experience to drive traffic and improve selection. It highlights the changing nature of business in the digital age, driven by network effects and technological advancements.
Relevance Today: While the AIDA model and other traditional frameworks still offer valuable insights, modern businesses need to adapt to the digital age’s unpredictability and leverage factors like customer experience and network effects for competitive advantage.
Business Tools and Frameworks: The discussion also covered various business tools and frameworks, such as the Ansoff Matrix, SWOT Analysis, PESTEL Analysis, Comparables Analysis, and Porter’s Five Forces, demonstrating the evolution of strategic thinking.
Real-World Examples: Examples from companies like Coca-Cola, Lincoln, and Nike illustrated how the AIDA model can be applied in marketing campaigns to attract attention, generate interest, create desire, and drive action.
Focus on Customer Experience: The changing dynamics of business, driven by technology and connectivity, require businesses to focus on providing excellent customer experiences and leveraging network effects for growth.
Continuous Adaptation: Business strategies need to be iterative and adaptable, responding to changing technological landscapes, customer behaviors, and market dynamics.
AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. That is a model that is used in marketing to describe the potential journey a customer might go through before purchasing a product or service. The AIDA model helps organizations focus their efforts when optimizing their marketing activities based on the customers’ journeys.
Why is AIDA important?
The AIDA model helps companies prioritize their marketing activities and communication based on the different touchpoints potential customers might get to know a brand. It also helps differentiate between attention, interest, desire, and action, thus creating more effective journeys for potential customers with a repeatable process in place.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
