Introduction: What Happens Between Seeing an Advertisement and Buying a Product?
An advertisement attracts attention, yet the product remains unsold. A salesperson delivers a persuasive presentation, but the customer leaves without placing an order. A manufacturer becomes widely known, while competitors continue to win the business.
These situations presented a fundamental problem to advertising practitioners during the nineteenth century. Visibility did not necessarily produce sales. Something else had to happen between the first encounter with a commercial message and the final decision to purchase.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, advertising and sales educators were increasingly describing persuasion as a sequence of psychological effects. A message might first attract attention, then stimulate interest, develop a favourable motivation and eventually encourage action.
The most famous expression of this idea became AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.
Its origins, however, are considerably more complicated than the familiar story suggests.
The American advertising practitioner E. St. Elmo Lewis is frequently credited with inventing the model in 1898. A detailed historical investigation by Akinori Iwamoto challenges that attribution. His research identifies important contributions by Frank H. Dukesmith and Arthur Frederick Sheldon and finds no convincing surviving evidence that Lewis formulated AIDA in 1898 (Iwamoto, 2024).
The history of AIDA is therefore not simply the biography of one advertising pioneer. It is the story of how selling became a teachable discipline, how psychology influenced advertising and how practitioners began thinking about the different effects that communication might produce.
Advertising Before the Modern Theory of Persuasion
The commercial world of the nineteenth century was changing rapidly.
Industrial production increased the availability of standardized goods. Railways expanded distribution networks. Newspapers, magazines and mail-order catalogues allowed manufacturers to reach consumers far beyond their local markets.
These developments transformed the relationship between producers and buyers.
In smaller markets, a customer might know the merchant personally. In larger markets, manufacturers increasingly relied on advertising and intermediaries to establish commercial relationships.
Advertising therefore acquired new responsibilities.
It had to make unfamiliar products recognizable, communicate their benefits and create confidence in producers whom consumers might never meet.
Michael Schudson (1984) examines advertising within the wider history of American society and commercial culture. Stuart Ewen (1976) similarly places modern advertising within the development of mass consumption.
Their historical perspectives help explain why advertising practitioners became interested in persuasion.
The expansion of manufacturing created a need to develop demand beyond existing personal relationships.
The Problem of Attention Without Action
Early advertisers understood that a prominent advertisement could be noticed without producing a purchase.
Large headlines, unusual illustrations and decorative typography might attract the reader’s eye.
Yet attracting attention was only the beginning.
A reader could notice an advertisement and remain indifferent to the product.
A salesperson could begin a conversation without persuading the prospect.
Practitioners therefore searched for a sequence of tasks that advertising should perform.
Attention was commonly placed near the beginning.
Interest, information, conviction and desire were frequently discussed as intermediate conditions.
Action represented the commercial outcome.
The precise terminology was not initially fixed.
That diversity is historically important. The later four-stage AIDA formula emerged from a broader professional conversation rather than appearing fully formed in a single publication (Iwamoto, 2024).
Earlier Ideas Before 1898
The conventional origin story begins in 1898, but comparable ideas were circulating before that year.
Iwamoto (2024) examines earlier advertising and sales literature, including texts that described persuasion as a progression through several mental states.
Frederick Bartlett Goddard, for example, discussed attention, interest, conviction and the awakening of desire in 1889.
His formulation was not identical to the later AIDA model.
Nevertheless, it demonstrates that the conceptual ingredients of staged persuasion were already present.
An anonymous article published in Printers’ Ink in February 1898 also distinguished the task of attracting attention from the subsequent need to interest and convince the reader.
Such examples undermine the idea that the basic concept suddenly emerged through the work of one person.
They suggest that advertising practitioners were responding to a shared problem: how to explain why some messages generated commercial results while others did not.
E. St. Elmo Lewis and the Traditional Attribution
Elias St. Elmo Lewis was an influential American advertising practitioner.
He contributed to professional publications and worked on principles intended to improve advertising and sales communication.
His writings show a clear interest in the different tasks that advertisements should perform.
In 1899, Lewis described advertising in terms of attracting the reader’s attention, providing information and ultimately creating a customer. Other statements connected attraction, interest and conviction (Lewis, 1899, as discussed in Iwamoto, 2024).
These formulations are important predecessors of the AIDA sequence.
They do not, however, establish that Lewis invented the complete four-stage model in 1898.
The familiar claim derives largely from Edward Kellogg Strong’s 1925 book The Psychology of Selling and Advertising.
Strong stated that Lewis had formulated a three-part sequence in 1898 and later added the requirement for action (Strong, 1925).
He did not identify the original 1898 publication supporting this assertion.
Iwamoto’s investigation likewise found no convincing documentary evidence of the alleged formulation at that date (Iwamoto, 2024).
Lewis therefore remains an important figure in the development of staged advertising principles, but the traditional claim of sole authorship is not securely established.
Frank H. Dukesmith and the Importance of Action
Frank H. Dukesmith is less familiar to contemporary marketing practitioners.
Nevertheless, his contribution is significant in the historical reconstruction of AIDA.
Iwamoto (2024) identifies Dukesmith as one of the important contributors to the formulation of the model, particularly through the emphasis on action.
This was a consequential addition.
An advertisement could create awareness or interest without producing a commercial response.
By emphasizing action, early practitioners connected the design of persuasive messages with a desired behavioural outcome.
Depending on the product and distribution system, that outcome might be a store visit, an inquiry, a catalogue request or a purchase.
The concept would later become especially relevant to direct-response advertising.
Its historical importance lies in recognizing that communication effectiveness cannot always be evaluated solely by whether an advertisement is remembered.
Arthur Frederick Sheldon and the Teaching of Salesmanship
Arthur Frederick Sheldon played a major role in the development of systematic sales education.
He approached selling as an activity that could be studied, taught and improved.
This was an important change in professional thinking.
Salesmanship was no longer necessarily regarded as a mysterious personal talent possessed by a small number of gifted individuals.
Instead, educators attempted to identify recurring principles and develop methods for teaching them.
Iwamoto (2024) argues that Sheldon made a particularly important contribution to the development of the complete AIDA sequence.
His research concludes that Sheldon recognized the importance of the fourth stage and the need for a coherent theory earlier than Lewis.
This conclusion challenges the traditional allocation of credit.
It also demonstrates how closely advertising theory and sales education were connected at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Both disciplines sought to understand how an initial encounter could develop into a commercial decision.
From AIDA to Satisfaction
The development of staged sales models did not necessarily end with the purchase.
Sheldon is also associated with the addition of Satisfaction, producing the extended sequence often called AIDAS.
This fifth stage introduced a different understanding of successful selling.
Obtaining an order was not sufficient if the customer subsequently became dissatisfied.
A successful commercial relationship might depend on whether the product met expectations and encouraged future purchases.
The addition of satisfaction therefore moved the discussion beyond the immediate transaction.
It would be historically misleading to claim that Sheldon had developed modern customer lifetime value analysis.
Nevertheless, the extension demonstrates that early sales theorists recognized the importance of the post-purchase experience (Iwamoto, 2024).
Edward Kellogg Strong and the Power of a Textbook
Strong’s The Psychology of Selling and Advertising appeared in 1925.
The book brought together psychological concepts and practical commercial problems.
Its subject matter extended well beyond AIDA, addressing motivation, decision-making, memory, brands and customer satisfaction.
Yet Strong’s brief historical attribution to Lewis became one of its most influential legacies.
By identifying an inventor and a date, he supplied a memorable origin story.
Later writers repeated the account.
Over time, a claim that lacked a clearly identified original source acquired the appearance of an established historical fact.
Iwamoto (2024) demonstrates why this matters.
Marketing history requires the same critical examination of evidence as other historical disciplines.
Repeated attribution is not a substitute for contemporary documentation.
The Emergence of Advertising Psychology
The development of AIDA coincided with increasing interest in the application of psychology to commercial communication.
Advertisers wanted to understand attention, memory, motivation and decision-making.
They hoped that advertising could be designed according to principles rather than intuition alone.
Stage models offered an attractive framework.
They allowed practitioners to distinguish between gaining attention, communicating information, encouraging favourable attitudes and producing action.
These distinctions were useful even before the availability of modern digital measurement tools.
However, the assumption that every customer moves through the same stages in the same order was never universally established.
Later research would question whether persuasion always follows a strictly linear path (Barry and Howard, 1990).
Claude Hopkins and Advertising as a Commercial Test
Claude C. Hopkins contributed to the development of results-oriented advertising.
His 1923 book Scientific Advertising argued that advertising should be evaluated in relation to its commercial effects (Hopkins, 1923).
Hopkins was not the inventor of AIDA.
His work nevertheless reflected a related ambition: advertising should do more than attract attention.
It should contribute to identifiable business results.
This perspective helped strengthen the connection between promotional communication and consumer response.
It also encouraged practitioners to examine the effectiveness of different approaches.
The historical relationship between Hopkins and AIDA is therefore conceptual rather than a direct claim of authorship.
Both belong to the wider movement toward systematic advertising practice.
The Development of Hierarchy-of-Effects Models
During the twentieth century, the idea of staged advertising effects became increasingly important in academic research.
Researchers distinguished between different kinds of consumer responses.
Some involved knowledge and awareness.
Others concerned feelings, preferences and intentions.
Still others involved actual behaviour.
This distinction offered a more detailed framework than the original four-stage formula.
It also created a practical question for advertisers: should every campaign be judged immediately by sales, or might some campaigns legitimately aim to increase awareness or change attitudes?
The later hierarchy-of-effects tradition attempted to answer that question.
Lavidge and Steiner’s Model in 1961
Robert J. Lavidge and Gary A. Steiner published A Model for Predictive Measurements of Advertising Effectiveness in the Journal of Marketing in 1961.
Their article examined the functions of advertising and the implications for measuring effectiveness (Lavidge and Steiner, 1961).
The authors proposed a progression involving awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction and purchase.
The model provided a more differentiated understanding of advertising objectives.
A campaign for an unfamiliar product might need to establish awareness before encouraging preference.
Advertising for an established product might instead seek to strengthen conviction or stimulate purchase.
This approach connected communication objectives with the design of advertising research.
Its significance was not merely the addition of more stages.
It represented a stronger attempt to define what advertising was expected to accomplish and how progress toward those objectives might be evaluated.
The Critique of Linear Advertising Effects
The hierarchy-of-effects tradition became influential, but it also attracted criticism.
Thomas E. Barry and Daniel J. Howard reviewed the theoretical and empirical issues in their 1990 article A Review and Critique of the Hierarchy of Effects in Advertising.
They discussed the common assumption that advertising responses involve cognitive, affective and behavioural components.
They also examined the controversies surrounding the ordering of those components (Barry and Howard, 1990).
The critique matters because real purchasing behaviour is often more complicated than a linear model suggests.
Consumers may purchase familiar products through habit.
They may respond emotionally before seeking information.
Complex business purchases may involve repeated cycles of research, evaluation and discussion.
AIDA is therefore best understood as a planning framework rather than a universal psychological law.
The Connection to Modern Marketing Funnels
The historical logic of AIDA remains recognizable in modern marketing funnels.
Digital marketers often distinguish between awareness, consideration and conversion.
These categories resemble the earlier attempt to separate initial attention from later decision-making.
A search advertisement might introduce a product.
An educational article might help a potential customer understand a problem.
A product comparison might support evaluation.
A quotation request might represent a concrete conversion.
These are contemporary applications of a much older principle.
However, modern funnels should not be treated as direct, unchanged descendants of one formula created in 1898.
Their development also reflects advances in consumer research, management, computing and digital analytics.
The enduring contribution of AIDA was the language it provided for thinking about different communication tasks.
Why the History of AIDA Matters
The development of AIDA demonstrates how marketing knowledge emerges.
Ideas are discussed in professional journals, tested in commercial practice, incorporated into teaching and eventually simplified into familiar formulas.
Different contributors may emphasize different elements.
Later textbooks can assign credit in ways that obscure the original complexity.
The historical record surrounding Lewis, Dukesmith and Sheldon provides an unusually clear example.
It also shows the importance of distinguishing between a useful theory and a historically accurate account of its invention.
AIDA can remain valuable even if its traditional origin story is incorrect.
Its practical usefulness does not depend on proving that one individual created all four stages in a particular year.
Conclusion: The Idea Behind AIDA Was More Important Than a Single Inventor
AIDA remains one of the most enduring frameworks in advertising and sales history.
Its influence rests on a simple proposition: commercial communication must accomplish different tasks before it can contribute to a purchase.
Yet the model’s origins cannot be reduced confidently to E. St. Elmo Lewis in 1898.
Earlier formulations existed. Frank H. Dukesmith and Arthur Frederick Sheldon made important contributions. Edward Kellogg Strong later helped establish the conventional Lewis attribution.
Subsequent researchers developed the hierarchy-of-effects tradition and questioned its assumptions.
The historical achievement of AIDA was therefore collective and cumulative.
Its lasting importance lies in the idea that effective advertising is not merely about being seen. It is about understanding the different processes that may connect a message with a commercial decision.
References
Barry, T.E. and Howard, D.J. (1990) ‘A review and critique of the hierarchy of effects in advertising’, International Journal of Advertising, 9(2), pp. 121-135. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.1990.11107138.
Ewen, S. (1976) Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hopkins, C.C. (1923) Scientific Advertising. New York: Lord & Thomas.
Iwamoto, A. (2024) ‘The origin of AIDA: Who invented and formulated the AIDA model?’, Journal of Marketing History Research, 3(2), pp. 150-166. https://doi.org/10.51102/jmhr.3.2_53.
Lavidge, R.J. and Steiner, G.A. (1961) ‘A model for predictive measurements of advertising effectiveness’, Journal of Marketing, 25(6), pp. 59-62. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224296102500611.
Schudson, M. (1984) Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American Society. New York: Basic Books.
Strong, E.K. (1925) The Psychology of Selling and Advertising. New York: McGraw-Hill.
