ABSTRACT
From its beginnings as social science theory in the late 19th century through today, advertising theory has taken two basic forms and sometimes a blend of the two: The fi rst type is managerial and the second is psychological. Many of the main advertising theories are managerial, although admittedly they involve psychological variables. These theories include the hierarchy models, multi-attribute theory, means-end models, and many variations and combinations of these. These are “big picture” approaches in the sense that they provide the manager with basic stages that a consumer might go through between exposure to an advertisement and buying the product. These theories include stages that have psychological names: attention, involvement, memory, attitudes, desire, intention to purchase, beliefs, and behavior. But the theories do not focus on understanding micro-level psychological processes.
