“Change behavior, before you try and change attitudes”.

These were the wise words delivered to me by Hugh McKay, 30 years ago, and I have never forgotten them, and am constantly reminded as I see people justify something they have done that is different, unexpected, or inconsistent.

Behavior is easier to change than attitudes, so get to the behavior first, then again, and slowly, attitudes will alter to accommodate the altered behavior.

Therefore if you want to have effective advertising, focus on which behaviors you want to change, and worry about attitude later, but generally, you need not worry, it will take care of itself.

People are the same as they were 50 years ago, 500 years ago, the things they own and want have changed absolutely, but what motivates people has not. Just look at the behavior that Shakespeare wrote about, greed, jealousy, love, ambition and  regret, they are still all with us.

The net is just like an electronic yellow pages. When you know you want something, you go to it to find the best buy, what meets your specs, etc, but you do not create demand in the yellow pages, similarly, you do not create demand on the net, the best you can do is generate awareness of your offer.

Make sure that the two fundamental purposes of advertising are not mixed.

The first is to create awareness,

The second is to create demand.

These two things are not the same, and the communication strategy used must be consistent with the potential of the medium and the manner of the message to achieve it.