The Role of Advertising in Selling

The advertising’s objective is to get people to place orders for what is on offer. The way that advertising works is on a scale of immediacy; direct response advertising being the most immediate while some campaigns reinforce attitudes and beliefs about the organization or brand advertised.
There are many factors at work beyond the advertised message: price, availability of offer and of alternatives, level of distribution, peer pressure, and competitive advertising all play a part. Moreover, for many products, such as ice cream, weather plays a significant part. Advertising will frequently be only one influence among many on how consumers behave and what they buy. This is why it has proved to be so difficult to measure the effect of advertising alone among so many influences.
It was the recognition that advertising was only one factor in the total process of selling that led to the development of a series of advertising models. These are largely based on the idea that advertising can help move consumers through a series of steps that gradually build up the necessary conditions for a sale.