2. On p. 161 of the textbook, there is a discussion of the six stages of the hierarchy of effects model, namely awareness, knowledge, liking, preferences, conviction, and the actual purchase.

With advertising being such a large source of expenditure for firms, there has been a plethora of postulation's put forward in order to determine how advertising works, and how it influences consumer behaviour.   Most importantly studies have been conducted in order to discover, what constitutes advertising effectiveness.   Much of the literature has focused on the Hierarchy Of Effects concept, which proposes that consumers pass through cognitive steps as they move towards a purchase action.   An understanding of the way advertising can affect consumers is vital in order to produce successful advertising and marketing campaigns.   

The study of Hierarchy of Effects model is important because it helps advertisers set guidelines on how to effectively target consumers with their advertisements so that a consumer may purchase a brand or product.   However the main issue is that consumers do not make purchase decisions solely on their reactions to an advertisement.   There are many factors that lead to purchase decisions which relevant advertisements cannot target.   For example, consumers spot buy, may have had bad experiences with the product in the past and can be so loyal to a brand that any amount of advertising will not change there awareness of other brand in the market place.   Regardless of how advertising campaigns are structured consumers are unpredictable and the feelings evoked in one consumer may not be the same as the feelings of another when exposed to the same advertisement. No amount of study of any model can help advertisers accurately predict how a consumer will react and behave.   

A hierarchical representation of how advertising influences a consumer's decision to purchase or not purchase a product or service over time. And so we use the hierarchy-of-effects theory to set up a structured series of advertising message objectives for a particular product, with the goal of building upon each successive objective until a sale is ultimately made The objectives of a campaign are (in order of delivery): awareness, knowledge, liking, preference,conviction and purchase.

This model has been adapted in a number of ways since 1961, but it still remains a good foundation for aligning your marketing efforts with a customer's decision-making process.

The six steps are as follows:

Awareness

The first major effect is awareness. This has also been labeled by some models as attention. The general premise is that before a consumer carries on in evaluating your brand he must first recognize your existence. This coincides with the first step in consumer decision-making, which is need awareness. When a customer is either open to stimulation proposing a need or becomes aware he has one, he is open to promotional messages emphasizing your brand and product. Additionally, repeated exposures to your ads over time can lead to recall when a customer is ready to buy. The customer becomes aware of the product through advertising. This is a challenging step, there is no guarantee that the customer will be aware of the product brand after they view the advert. Customers see many adverts each day but will only remember the brand of a tiny fraction of products.