THE AIETA MODEL AS PRESENTED BY EVERETT ROGERS

                                           SAMUEL AMPONSAH  

The AIETA modal, a modal in advertising was presented by Everett Rogers in 1962 in his work or study entitled “Diffusion of innovations”. The model follows a hierarchy because it assumes the hierarchy of effects.

Even though the AIETA model as presented by Everett Rogers follows a hierarchy of effects, it disagrees with the DARGMAR model. The DARGMAR model introduced by Russel Colley in 1961 proposed four stages for the communication task. These are Awareness, Comprehension, Conviction (Believability), and Action.

However, Everett Rogers proposed Awareness, Interest, Evaluation, Trial and Adoption which represent the acronym AIETA, as the best steps to take when preparing the communication task in advertising.

According to him, the target audience of the campaign should be aware of the product. For any advertising campaign to be successful, the intended audience who the campaign is target at, should be aware and conversant with whatever product or service to be reach. For instance, the Indomie Noodles advert being aired on both radio and television has been successful because the target audiences of the campaign are very much aware of the product.

In Ghana at the moment, whenever one thinks of Noodles, he or she thinks of Indomie. This proves that, for any good communication task, the first thing to do is to make the intended audience to be aware of the product or service.

The next stage after creating awareness in the preparation of the communication task is to generate interest. According to Rogers, the advert should be fashioned to generate interest in consumers, and this can be achieved depending on how creative the advertisement is. Here, creativity is the watch word for attention.

The advert should be able to arouse consumer’s interest in the product or service. Successful companies like Nestle, continue to use creativity to generate interest in its product. Because of the creativity brought to bear in the advertisement of the new Milo with Actigen-E advert, consumer interest has been aroused. This is the stage where images and information about the product or service is much needed. As in the case of the new Milo with Actigen- E campaign by Nestle, the company as a means of generating interest gave out reasons why consumers should go for their new product.

How the consumer evaluates or accesses a product or service is something very important to consider in any advertising campaign according to Rogers. The campaign should push consumer to evaluate the product or service in a favourable way especially when there are competitors in the market.

At this stage, persuasive and comparative advertisement can b e used for consumers to evaluate a product or service in a favourable way than it’s competitors. Image of celebrities, popular and highly rated people in

 the society can also be used to testify. This is normally used by the telecommunication industries especially MTN.

Getting consumers to move to a stage of trail is also an essential stage in planning advertising campaign. Sales promotion adverts comes in handy at this stage. The ‘’Buy One Get One Free” promotion being used by most companies in Ghana is very important in getting consumers to try a product.

Adoption of the product or service is the last stage in the campaign planning of any advertising according to Everett Rogers. Consumers should be assured on the need to go for the product or service.